Soccer
The 2026 World Cup will be the biggest ever, featuring 48 nations. With 104 matches over 39 days, it provides sports gamblers with plenty of opportunities to place bets. Esoccer, however, is already attracting users with round-the-clock gambling.
Betting service provider Kambi released its esoccer report 2026 this week, which revealed that esoccer gamblers place six times more wagers than non-esoccer bettors. The segment now ranks fourth among sports, ahead of esports, tennis, and football.
“Few parts of the sports betting industry have grown as rapidly as esoccer in recent years,” said Kambi VP of Esports, Niclas Sundell. “It has quietly grown beyond being a mere niche or filler offering to become a core driver of sportsbook revenue.”
Esoccer Outranks Esports
Last year, only soccer, horse racing, and basketball saw more bets placed than esoccer. The virtual games now attract more bets than major soccer leagues, including Serie A in Italy and La Liga in Spain.
For part of the year, esports ranked in the top five, but it has now dropped out to make way for esoccer.
The volume of bets on the virtual contests has risen dramatically since 2021. Primarily, it appears to be soccer bettors looking for more chances to bet. Of all those who placed a bet on escoccer, 92% had also wagered on a real soccer match.
The overlap is much stronger than that with esports. Of gamblers in Latin America who had wagered on either esports or esoccer, only 5% had placed bets on both, with 90% of them only wagering on esoccer. In Europe, the crossover was higher at 22%, while the rest of the world saw a similar ratio as Latin America.
Kambi said this points to esoccer having “a distinct base of bettors, with engagement largely independent of other esports, supporting its positioning as a core betting vertical in its own right and not merely a gateway to esports.”
Non-Stop Action Keeps Bettors Gambling
Kambi now offers more than 7,000 esoccer matches to sportsbooks per week. The non-stop action is designed to keep users on the platform and gambling.
Sportsbooks have been accused of encouraging problem gambling by offering an increased number of markets on live events. The Public Health Advisory Institute (PHAI) filed a lawsuit against DraftKings, FanDuel, Genius Sports and the NFL earlier this year.
The fast-paced wagering of microbetting has been likened to casino gambling, which the PHAI argues is inherently addictive.
Sundell, however, stressed that Kambi’s ability to offer a steady stream of betting options is its selling point.
“With fast-paced matches lasting between eight and 12 minutes, it offers non-stop action that keeps fans engaged even when major leagues are paused,” Sundell stated. “This ‘match downtime is your uptime’ dynamic has proven invaluable for sportsbooks looking to maintain steady engagement and predictable revenue streams.”
The World Cup presents an opportunity to attract many new users to gambling platforms, and Kambi says esoccer can keep them on the platforms when the tournament ends.
“Esoccer fills a different space for sportsbooks – it is 24/7 content that is growing to become an absolute must-have,” Sundell added.
Read MoreAdam Roarty