TLDR
- Bettors finished ahead of bookmakers across all 104 matches at the FIFA World Cup 2026, according to data from Blask.
- The tournament’s total index score came in at -56.91, favoring bettors overall.
- Matchday 3 of the group stage alone accounted for more than half the deficit, scoring -29.80.
- The knockout stage was close to even, with all 32 games combining for just -2.92.
- New Zealand’s 1-5 loss to Belgium was the single worst result for bookmakers all tournament.
Bettors came out ahead of bookmakers during the FIFA World Cup 2026, according to new data from Blask, an analysis platform that tracks the gaming sector. The findings cover all 104 matches played across the tournament.
The World Cup was hosted in North America. It ran from June 11 to July 19 and featured 48 national teams.
Blask shared its research in a briefing with GGRAsia. The platform found that bettors finished ahead on the total index at -56.91 across the full tournament.
Matchday 3 Drove the Deficit
One phase of the group stage stood out as the biggest factor. Matchday 3, played between June 24 and 27, included 24 matches.
That single phase scored -29.80 on its own. Blask said this made up 52.4% of the entire tournament’s deficit for bookmakers.
That number is larger than Matchday 1 and Matchday 2 combined. Those two phases scored -14.29 and -9.89, adding up to 42.5% of the total deficit together.
The worst individual match for bookmakers came during this stretch. New Zealand’s 1-5 loss to Belgium in Group G scored -10.5, making it the most favorable result for bettors in the whole tournament.
Blask noted that Matchday 3 was not bad for bookmakers across every match. The best result of that phase was a 0-0 draw between Colombia and Portugal, which scored +8.2 on the index.
That result nearly matched the best score from Matchday 2. Every phase of the group stage had at least one match that favored bookmakers alongside its losses.
Knockout Stage Stayed Close
The knockout rounds told a different story. All 32 games in this stage combined for a score of -2.92.
That figure represents just 5.1% of the overall deficit. This came despite the knockout stage being the largest single group of matches in the dataset.
The best knockout match for bookmakers was Switzerland’s 2-0 win over Algeria, which scored +4.9. The worst was Portugal’s 2-1 win over Croatia, which scored -7.2.
Both of those results were smaller in scale than the swings seen during Matchday 3. Blask said this shows the knockout stage balanced out rather than favoring one side heavily.
No single round of the tournament was one-sided at the match level, Blask said. Every stage had at least one match that strongly favored bookmakers and one that strongly favored bettors.
The difference between phases came down to how many matches landed on each side. Matchday 3 leaned toward bettors because more matches tipped that way, not because every match went badly for bookmakers.
The knockout stage stayed close because wins and losses on each side roughly canceled each other out. Blask’s data covers the tournament in full, from the opening match through the final rounds of play.
