Sportsbooks are adding live betting and gamified promos ahead of the 2026 World Cup to compete with prediction markets

Flutter, DraftKings, and BetMGM are widening promotions and building more interactive betting interfaces before the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The reason is plain enough: prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are getting enough volume and attention that traditional sportsbooks no longer get to ignore them.

1. According to the Financial Times, the volume of contracts traded on the winner at Polymarket reached US$ 1.5 billion (R$ 7.6 billion). That is a useful number for PSPs and acquirers because it shows prediction markets are no longer a side note in the same sports events that sportsbooks have always treated as core inventory.
2. The 2026 World Cup starts on 11 June and will run for 39 days across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. FIFA has set the tournament at 48 teams and 104 matches, which means a lot more betting windows, more live markets, and more payment traffic concentrated into a single event.
3. Flutter, which owns Paddy Power and FanDuel, plans to introduce a gamified interface before kickoff. The tool will let users place live bets on the area of the goal where penalty takers will shoot, while the company also expands promotions for accumulators in the United Kingdom and parlays in the United States. In the U.S. market, Flutter will offer 120-minute markets that include extra time and break matches into shorter “microbets,” a format already popular in American football and basketball.
4. DraftKings has built a Spanish-language version of its platform specifically for the tournament. DraftKings and FanDuel have also started offering prediction markets on their own platforms, while using geolocation data to make sure the apps work only in states where sports betting is allowed. For operators and payment providers, that means product design and state-by-state access control are now part of the same conversation.
5. Polymarket and Kalshi have expanded their footprint in global betting markets with simple yes-or-no contracts on events ranging from football matches to reality show finales, celebrity wedding dates, and election results. The platforms have been able to sidestep state bans on sports betting in the U.S. because they are treated as derivatives markets, and the two largest prediction market operators now get most of their revenue from sports betting. They are also rolling out their own version of parlays, called combos, which is exactly the sort of product that starts looking less like a curiosity and more like a direct threat to sportsbook margin.

Peter Jackson, CEO of Flutter, called the tournament “the biggest betting opportunity we have ever seen.” Jason Robins, head of DraftKings, said it would be “a huge focal point for customer acquisition.” That is the commercial backdrop: the World Cup is becoming not just a sports event, but a live test of whether regulated sportsbooks can keep pace with prediction markets on product, UX, and payment flows.