The FIFA Club World Cup ended with victory for Chelsea against huge favourites Paris Saint-Germain, but it was a mixed bag of a tournament for bookmakers like bet365 and Betsson.
In a post-tournament review, bet365 reported that it had experienced decent turnover on the Club World Cup overall, although the bookmaker did note that it was unsure about how well the tournament would perform with punters.
The 2025 Club World Cup was the first one under an expanded format with 32 teams, a huge enhancement on previous tournaments which usually had around six or seven teams.
This was met with a lot of scepticism among football fans, however, with some viewing it as a cynical money-making move from FIFA, while some players were also disgruntled at having yet another high pressure tournament to compete in.
However, FIFA may gain some confidence from bet365’s data which showed that the UK and Spain were among the three countries with the most interest in the tournament. Brazil was the other country on this list, not a particularly surprising development as the Club World Cup has traditionally had a large Latin American following.
bet365’s Sports and Trading Expert, Steve Freeth, said: “We were initially uncertain about how the Club World Cup would be received by our customers, with negativity in some quarters and some late night/early morning kick-off times for matches featuring teams less familiar to a UK audience.
“However, we were delighted with the global turnover on the showpiece with interest increasing noticeably from the knockout stage onwards.”
Club World Cup fills a gap, but its no Euro 2024
Summer tournaments are often a very useful bridge between the different domestic seasons for bookmakers. Football is by far the most popular betting market globally, having taken over from horse racing in even traditional markets like the UK.
National team tournaments such as the World Cup, Euros and Copa América are the concrete and mortar of this bridge. Patriotic punting is often particularly lucrative for bookmakers, both in terms of simple revenue generation but also for marketing and fan engagement.
In the view of Betsson AB CEO, Pontus Lindwall, the Club World Cup still fulfilled this gap filling function, but its popularity with punters cannot be compared to World Cup or Euros.
In the wake of Betsson publishing its Q2/H1 financial report, Lindwall told SBC’s iGaming Daily podcast that the event “didn’t create anywhere near the same interest as the more established tournaments”, though noting that was “natural for such a new format”.
“It’s a successful tournament in the sense that there was, in a way, a new format, a new tournament coming up in a part of the season which was not too busy. I think the interest for the tournament as such was not as high as the more established tournaments that have been around forever, and that’s natural.
“I’ve heard that people like to see games between teams from different regions, and that’s kind of interesting to see in this format with such a tournament, but we believe that the tournament will have to keep on growing and become more popular – and I believe that is what will happen.”
Player bets save the day for punters
It appears then that the Club World Cup performed better than many may have hoped, though in comparison to the likes of the World Cup and Euros, FIFA still has a lot of brand work to do.
But going a little deeper than turnover, how did the tournament pan out from a trading perspective? bet365 noted a few bookmaker-friendly results, like 1/100 favourite Boca Juniors failing to beat Auckland and 2/5 favourite Real Madrid drawing 1-1 against Al Hilal.
However, a number of other matches saw favourites come out on top, dealing a blow to the bookies’ Club World Cup coffers. Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Borussia Dortmund, Fluminense and Juventus all delivered bettor-friendly results.
Meanwhile, some substitutions made during key matches also played into punters’ pockets – perhaps showing once again how bet365’s ‘Sub On, Sub Off’ feature may lead to some losses for the firm but remains a big winner for customer retention reasons.
Bet365’s Freeth remarked: “While the Club World Cup group stages yielded some bookmaker-friendly results, we also gave plenty back with a number of costly substitutions.
“Jamal Musiala replacing Harry Kane – who was Super Boosted to score two or more – and then banging in a hat-trick tops the charts for player pay-outs in Bayern’s 10-0 win over Auckland.
“The substitution of Omar Marmoush for Erling Haaland at half-time in the Manchester City versus Juventus clash always had the potential to be messy for us and figures prominently in our list, with Phil Foden also coming off the bench to replace Jeremy Doku and scoring within minutes.”
The first iteration of this 32 team Club World Cup didn’t have a terrible start in the face of fan scepticism and fatigue, thanks largely to some attention grabbing results.
However, viewing figures were not impressive in the UK, with ITV”s coverage of the England v Wales group stage game of the UEFA Women’ s Euros beating Channel 5’s coverage of Chelsea’s shock victory over PSG in the final by an average of 4.2 million viewers to 1.1 million.
If the bookies’ reviews of the Club World Cup are also anything to go by, FIFA President Gianni Infantino still has a lot more work to put in if he wants to establish the tournament as a huge fan attraction in the same league as the Euros, Copa América or World Cup.
However, as seen in by the presence of Brazil in the top three markets in bet365’s breakdown, the Club World Cup has historically been very popular in Latin America.
For operators interested in Brazil’s rapidly developing market as well as Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, which both bet365 and Betsson are, a more regional approach to trading and marketing the Club World Cup under its new format may pay off.
