New York, May 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Optimove Insights today released its 2026 EU World Cup Betting Intentions Report, finding that 92% of European bettors planning to wager on the 2026 FIFA World Cup have bet on a previous tournament, including 50% who wagered on both 2018 and 2022. Only 8% will be betting on a World Cup for the first time. Optimove Insights is the analytical and research arm of Optimove, the creator of Positionless Marketing and the #1 Player Engagement Solution for iGaming and sports betting operators.
The finding establishes the EU World Cup audience as a deeply experienced, year-round soccer betting market. Three out of four EU bettors plan to wager on the 2026 tournament, and the audience overlaps almost entirely with the year-round soccer betting base. Only 5% of respondents have not bet on soccer at all in the past 12 months.
The data has direct implications for sportsbook retention strategy. With the World Cup audience and the year-round soccer audience largely the same, the tournament represents an intensification of existing customer relationships rather than a customer acquisition window. Welcome offers will move the small first-timer segment, but the substantive revenue opportunity lies in depth and primary-site loyalty during a concentrated, high-volume moment.
The report is based on a survey of 882 bettors globally with household incomes equivalent to €70,000 (£60,000) or higher, conducted in early 2026, including 283 EU World Cup bettors.
Other key findings:
- Year-round engagement. Thirty-three percent (33%) of EU bettors wager on soccer several times per week, and another 24% bet weekly. Forty-four percent (44%) rate themselves as very confident in their betting knowledge, and another 42% as moderately confident, totaling 86% combined confidence.
- Soft elimination transition. Eighty-four percent (84%) support a favorite national team, but only 44% describe their loyalty as exclusively strong. Forty percent (40%) say they have a favorite team but also follow other teams closely. When their team is eliminated, 80% will keep betting on remaining games: fifty percent (50%) definitely, thirty percent (30%) at reduced frequency. Only 1% will stop entirely.
- Pre-match remains the foundation. Twenty-four percent (24%) prefer pre-match betting only, and 55% will do both pre-match and live. Only 17% say live betting is their preference. Thirty-eight percent (38%) prefer single bets per match over multi-bet wagering.
- Push-dominant communications. Forty-three percent (43%) prefer mobile app push notifications as their primary outreach channel, ahead of email (21%), in-app messages (18%), and SMS (8%). The mobile app is also the dominant betting interface at 63%.
- Offers, then personalization. Forty percent (40%) say special offers and enhanced odds are the most important factor in opening a sportsbook communication, while 30% cite relevance to their team or players they follow. Personalization expectations are high but only partially met: 38% feel their preferred site personalizes communications well, while 43% feel communications are only somewhat personalized.
- The tournament as intensification. Ninety-three percent (93%) will continue betting on soccer after the World Cup ends. Eighty percent (80%) will move to the English Premier League, 70% to the UEFA Champions League, and 29% to La Liga. Sixty-four percent (64%) plan to use two or more sportsbooks during the tournament, with trust and familiarity ranking alongside promotions as primary site-selection drivers.
“For European operators, this is not a market to acquire. It is a market to retain,” said Pini Yakuel, Founder and CEO of Optimove. “European bettors arrive at the tournament with years of soccer betting behind them, and they will continue betting long after the final whistle. The operators who win this World Cup in Europe will be the ones who deepen their primary relationships during a concentrated revenue moment, not the ones with the loudest welcome offers. That is what Positionless Marketing makes possible.”
The full report is available at https://www.optimove.com/resources/reports/world-cup-2026-eu-betting-intentions-report-1
About Optimove
Optimove is the creator of Positionless Marketing and the #1 Player Engagement Solution for iGaming and sports betting operators. Positionless Marketing frees marketing teams from the limitations of fixed roles, giving every marketer the power to execute any marketing task instantly and independently. Positionless Marketing has been proven to improve campaign efficiency by 88%, allowing marketing teams to create more personalized engagement with existing customers.
For two years running, Optimove has been positioned as a Visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs, recognized for its AI-driven decisioning, prescriptive insights, and proven ability to orchestrate thousands of personalized campaigns in real time across channels. AI-led marketing is a hallmark of Optimove’s visionary leadership.
By embedding AI directly into its platform as early as 2012, Optimove paved the way for today’s Positionless Marketing standard. Its Positionless Marketing Platform includes Optimove Engage and Orchestrate for cross-channel campaign decisioning and orchestration; Optimove Personalize, a digital personalization engine; and Optimove Gamify, a loyalty and gamification platform.
Today, its comprehensive AI-powered suite is at the leading edge of empowering marketers to streamline workflows from Insight to Creation and through Optimization. Optimove provides industry-specific and use-case solutions for leading consumer brands globally.
About Optimove Insights
Optimove Insights is the analytical and research arm of Optimove, dedicated to providing valuable industry insights and data-driven research to empower B2C businesses.
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