World Cup: Pre-match betting back above 50%, Kindred reports
Kindred said that this may be due to the much broader customer base that the World Cup has brought compared to the consumers that the business historically has attracted, with more casual bettors.
The Unibet operator speculated that the time zones in which the games have been played also has influenced this result.
The timings of matches held in Qatar have meant that only the late games are within European working hours – while all games are either during the night or during the work day in North America and Australia. This may have pushed customers to participate in the pre-match betting.
Bet Builder
Another factor contributing to pre-match bets rebounding might be bet builder products. Kindred said it has reworked its selection of offers in its bet builder platform, which has helped activity grow.
The portion of bet builders among pre-match bets increased by 35% from the group stage to the knockout stage, which Kindred put down to customers seeking multiple-like bets with a lower frequency of matches. Bet builders also accounted for 29% of all legs in Kindred’s World Cup bets.
“The product is particularly popular for teams with many football stars like Brazil and France, as the big names drags the customers attention towards the player props, which are included in 45% of all bet builders and the third most popular bet type,” said Kindred. “The most popular bet type in the bet builder is the under/over lines, which are found in two thirds of all bet builders, while the 1×2 is a very close second.”
World Cup betting
Many operators expect the tournament to be the most significant betting event of the year. Leading online business Flutter stated before the competition that it was expecting to see £300m staked with its UK and Ireland brand alone.
The company had predicted that the business’ FanDuel and Sportbet brands would see greater engagement due to US and Australia qualifying for the World Cup.
“The World Cup is undoubtedly the biggest betting event of the year and everyone at Flutter shares the excitement of our customers as the tournament gets underway,” said Flutter group chief trading officer Dom Crosthwaite.