How major events like the World Cup influence sports betting activity
Game Plan is a Q&A series highlighting how KU School of Business research connects to the challenges and opportunities of hosting a global event. As the Kansas City and Lawrence areas welcome World Cup visitors, these conversations explore topics that affect travel, business operations, consumer behavior, and daily life across the region.
In this installment, Kevin Pisciotta, associate professor of finance, and Justin Balthrop, assistant professor of finance at KU from fall 2019–spring 2026, share insights from their research on how online sports betting shapes household finances. Their work uses bank account transaction data to track how betting influences savings, spending, and credit use over time, offering perspective on how major events like the World Cup can intersect with everyday financial decision-making.
Based on your research, what typically happens to sports betting activity when a major sports event like the World Cup captures widespread attention, particularly now that sports betting is legal in more states than when the U.S. last hosted the tournament?
Justin: It’s worth underscoring just how different the betting landscape is today, and not only relative to the last time the U.S. hosted. When the U.S. last held the tournament in 1994, Nevada was effectively the only place an American could legally place a single-game sports bet. But you don’t even have to go back that far to see the change. At the 2018 World Cup, only three states (Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware) had live legal markets. By the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, access had grown to roughly 31 states plus the District of Columbia offering legal online betting, and Americans wagered an estimated $1.8 billion on that tournament alone, according to the American Gaming Association. Today, following the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision striking down PASPA [Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act], about 38 states plus D.C. (and Puerto Rico) offer legal sports betting, with roughly 32 allowing statewide mobile wagering, and seven additional states coming online just since Qatar. National handle has climbed in step, recently exceeding $130 billion a year, with online handle running past $150 billion on an annualized basis. So, this is the first World Cup the U.S. has hosted in the era of legal, ubiquitous, in-pocket betting, and even compared with the most recent tournament four years ago, millions more Americans can now legally wager from their phones.
Kevin: It’s a good question. Sports betting is seasonal. There are stark spikes in sports betting dollar volume during the NFL season and March Madness, and June and July are typically dead periods. For example, U.S. sports betting wagering amounts often peak in January (recently around $16 billion) and fall to about 50% of their peak in July (recently around $8–9 billion). With this idea that major sporting events create natural spikes in betting activity in mind, the 2026 World Cup has several features that could make it especially important. First, it is one of the most watched sporting events in the world and will attract many casual fans who do not regularly follow soccer. Second, it takes place during a relatively quiet period on the U.S. sports calendar, when there will be a lot of pent up demand for betting with few alternative betting opportunities. Third, as Justin explained, sports betting is far more widespread today than when the U.S. last hosted the World Cup in 1994. Taken together, these factors suggest the World Cup will likely set records for amounts bet on professional soccer in the U.S.
As international visitors and major events come to the Kansas City region, how might increased marketing and accessibility around sports betting intersect with household financial decision-making?
Kevin: Increased marketing and accessibility expand the set of people who bet; people who might not otherwise bet on sports will participate. How this response will affect a household’s financial decision-making depends largely on whether betting remains an occasional activity or becomes a regular habit. On the one hand, a few bets during a major event are unlikely to meaningfully alter a household’s finances. Much like an expensive international trip to attend the World Cup, sports betting is an expense that requires households to either spend less elsewhere, save less, or take on additional debt. But, like many one-time expenses, it can likely be budgeted for. On the other hand, if betting becomes a pattern that they export from their time during the World Cup, there is a greater chance it produces lasting negative effects on households’ financial health.
Justin: I’ll push a little harder on that habit-formation channel, because I think it’s where the real risk lives. A marquee event like the World Cup functions as an on-ramp. To bet on a single match, a first-timer downloads the app, clears geolocation, links a debit card or bank account, and makes a deposit. Every bit of friction that previously kept that person out is now gone for good. The tournament is the customer-acquisition event, and the account it leaves behind is the durable thing. So even though Kevin’s right that a few World Cup bets won’t move a household’s finances, the concern is that the World Cup is precisely the kind of high-salience moment that converts non-bettors into account-holders who keep betting on whatever is on the calendar next. In that sense it can serve as a gateway to a steady stream of future wagers.
Are there households that tend to be more financially vulnerable to increased sports betting, and if so, what makes them more exposed?
Kevin: There are two groups we focus on in our research: (i) households with more active bettors, and (ii) households with less disposable income. There are lot of characteristics that correlate with these two groups. For example, young males are more likely to fall in the first group, and less educated and lower income households are more likely to fall in the second group. But our evidence speaks most directly to these “extent” and “sensitivity” sources of heterogeneity. That is, the first group is more vulnerable because they bet larger fractions of their income, and thus the extent of their betting is difficult for any balance sheet to absorb; the second group is more vulnerable because they have less income available to absorb any added expenditure before they either need to cut back on other current expenses or take on debt and sacrifice future consumption.
Justin: And those two vulnerabilities aren’t independent; they often stack in the same household. The bettor who wagers the largest share of income is frequently also the one with the thinnest cushion to absorb a bad run. When the “extent” and “sensitivity” channels Kevin describes land on the same balance sheet, that’s where we see the sharpest effects in the data: less money flowing into savings and brokerage accounts, and more reliance on high-interest debt.
What do people often misunderstand about the financial impact of sports betting during high-profile events like the World Cup?
Justin: I’d start with a misconception I hear constantly: The casual bettor assumes that as long as they pick winners about half the time, they’ll roughly break even. That intuition is wrong, and the reason is the vig (i.e., the built-in spread, or profit, for the sportsbook). On a standard bet priced at −110, you risk $110 to win $100. Suppose you place 100 such bets and go exactly 50–50. Your 50 wins bring in $5,000, but your 50 losses cost you $5,500, so you’re down $500 despite a perfect coin-flip record. Put differently, you need to win about 52.4% of the time just to break even, and every point below that bleeds money. At a 50% hit rate you’re losing roughly four to five cents of every dollar you put at risk, automatically, before you’ve had a single unlucky outcome. And that 4–5% is the friendly version: the moment you move into parlays and the exotic, hard-to-price bets the apps push hardest, the built-in hold climbs into the 10–15% range. The bettor sees a bigger potential payout; what they don’t see is that the house’s edge widened even faster.
Kevin: I think one common misunderstanding is that people evaluate sports betting one wager at a time rather than as a cumulative financial activity and underestimate the cumulative impact of giving up roughly a 10–15% edge against the house across a large dollar volume of bets over extended periods. Each individual deposit and bet seems justifiable and manageable in the moment: a $20 bet here and a $50 deposit there rarely feel consequential on their own. But over months or years, those small decisions can add up to thousands of dollars wagered against a house edge that is designed to favor the sportsbook. The financial impact often comes not from any single bet, but from the accumulation of many seemingly harmless bets over time.
High-profile events like the World Cup can amplify this tendency because there are so many games to watch and wager on over a relatively short period, and again, so few other things compete for one’s time: It is summer, work grinds to halt during the World Cup, and there are not many other sports or things on the calendar. The conditions are pretty ideal for betting on a sport one normally would not spend much time considering. People who would normally place only an occasional bet suddenly find themselves presented with dozens of opportunities. The risk is not necessarily the outcome of any one match, but how quickly repeated betting can compound into meaningful financial losses.
The World Cup brings sustained attention over several weeks. From your perspectives, how does that kind of prolonged exposure matter when it comes to betting behavior and household finances?
Kevin: The risk of problem gambling increases when opportunity is combined with repeated exposure. One thing working in households’ favor is that the World Cup is a really unique and, ultimately, temporary event. It would be hard to find something similar to bet on after it ends. However, the duration of the World Cup still matters. It is longer than March Madness and more than twice as long as the Olympics and provides weeks of continuous engagement and dozens of wagering opportunities. That repeated exposure increases the likelihood that casual bettors become more active, losses accumulate over time, and betting habits formed during the tournament persist after. As mentioned above, from a household finance perspective, the concern is rarely a single wager; it is the cumulative effect of repeated betting over an extended period. But it is also worth keeping in mind Justin’s earlier point: This unique event can be a powerful on-ramp to sustained use because it can offer a taste of the thrills of betting and remove barriers to future use.
Justin: I’d add a dimension to “duration.” It isn’t only that the tournament stretches over weeks; it’s that modern apps slice each individual match into a near-continuous stream of wagers. With live, in-play betting you’re no longer making one decision before kickoff. You can bet on the next goal, the next corner kick, the next card, the outcome of the next ten minutes, over and over for 90-plus minutes. So, a single game can present dozens of separate betting decisions. That high-frequency access extends the betting window in the granular direction and compresses the timeline: a bankroll that might have lasted the whole tournament on pre-match bets alone can be drawn down far faster, and the rapid-fire win/lose feedback is exactly the kind of loop that reinforces compulsive behavior. And the habits and payment rails it builds can outlast the event itself, even when there’s nothing quite like the World Cup to bet on once it’s over.
What do businesses need to be aware of during the World Cup in regard to employee pressure and performance as a result of sports-betting practices?
Kevin: Sports betting has become extremely common among college-aged adults, particularly the undergraduate finance students I teach, nearly all of which are between the ages of 19 and 21 and 75%+ are male. I survey my students each year, and in my most recent survey, more than over 75% reported having placed a sports bet. That result doesn’t mean sports betting is equally prevalent across every employee (sports betting is far less prevalent in other cohorts of people), but it does highlight how mainstream it has become among younger adults entering the labor market.
With that said, I do not think sports betting is a major systematic risk for most businesses. Certainly, some employees, working for some firms, are going to be distracted, and a smaller subset could experience financial difficulties with losses greater than what they expected and can handle. There is no easy solution for this problem. However, any adverse effects are likely to be concentrated among a relatively small subset of employees rather than broadly affecting the workforce, and employers can potentially help by creating opportunities for employees to engage with the excitement of the World Cup without necessarily wagering money. For example, a free office pool or prediction contest can capture much of the competition and camaraderie that people enjoy about sports betting while avoiding financial risks. A large component of the thrill of winning a sports bet is the feeling that you outsmarted the other side. Creating opportunities for those feelings without large financial risks could boost employee morale and limit the chances employees feel the urge to wager more than they can stand to lose.
Justin: I’d second the office-pool idea; it captures the social, competitive thrill that’s a big part of the appeal while keeping financial risk off the table. The one thing I’d flag for employers is the demographics: The cohort entering the workforce right now overlaps heavily with the heaviest-betting group Kevin describes. It isn’t a systemic business risk, but a manager who assumes “nobody here is really betting” is probably underestimating just how mainstream it has become among younger employees.
Looking at your research, what warning signs indicate that betting is shifting from entertainment to something that can undermine household stability?
Kevin: Good question. One warning sign is the use of credit, either directly for means of placing an additional bet, or indirectly for means of covering basic expenses because income that would otherwise have been available was spent on betting. Another is when the amount wagered begins to steadily increase over time. A third is when betting shifts from being an occasional form of entertainment to a routine part of a household’s financial life. For example, if someone shifts from betting socially with friends to betting when alone, or worse, hiding it from others, that could be sign betting is moving beyond pure entertainment. A useful rule of thumb is that betting should fit within a household’s entertainment budget and not interfere with work, family responsibilities, or other financial goals. Once it begins affecting how much a household saves, invests, or borrows, it might be time to reassess.
Justin: The behavioral red flag I’d add to Kevin’s list is chasing, meaning placing a bet specifically to recover a prior loss rather than because you saw value in the wager. “Betting to get even” is one of the clearest signals the activity has stopped being entertainment, because the motive has shifted from enjoyment to repair. It tends to go hand in hand with the escalating-stakes pattern Kevin mentioned, and the two together are a reliable warning sign.
What is some advice that you have to counteract that spending?
Kevin: First, if you do not understand the risks you are taking, you probably should not be taking those risks. For example, if someone chooses a parlay over single-game bet because it has “better odds,” they should probably not be betting parlays (parlays offer longer odds than the individual constituent bets, so there is a higher potential payoff, but there is also a higher built-in house edge. And that’s before considering whether the house specifically moves the lines against the bettor in hard-to-value combination bets). Second, set up strict deposit limits and treat them as non-negotiable. Limits are most effective when they are established before emotions become involved. Finally, related to the previous point, view sports betting unequivocally as entertainment spending rather than an investment. The money spent on sports betting should be viewed the same way one views the cost of attending a World Cup match, going to a concert, or taking a vacation. This perspective, combined with firm deposit limits, can help frame sports betting like an expense that can be budgeted for like anything else a household spends money on.
Justin: I’d just underline the pre-commitment point, because it’s the most actionable. Deposit and time limits work precisely because you set them while you’re calm and they bind you when you’re not. The emotional state in which people make their worst betting decisions is exactly the state in which they’d otherwise raise the limit. And Kevin’s parlay test is a great heuristic: If the appeal of a parlay is the “better odds,” that’s a sign you don’t yet understand the price you’re paying for them.
What role can research like yours play in helping the public better understand the financial ripple effects of major sporting events like the World Cup?
Justin: Beyond the balance-sheet questions, I think research has a real behavioral role to play, helping both operators and individuals recognize the moment betting tips from casual entertainment into something problematic. The signatures of that transition, such as escalating stake sizes, chasing losses, and betting alone or in secret, are measurable, and the more precisely we can characterize them, the easier it is to build guardrails and self-assessment tools around them. The analogy I keep coming back to is smoking. Americans once smoked on airplanes; it seemed perfectly normal at the time, and in hindsight it looks obviously ill-advised. I’d argue sports betting today is at a similarly early stage, roughly where smoking was before we understood the risks well enough to put warning labels on the package. The public understanding is still catching up to how widespread and frictionless the activity has become, and the faster we build the equivalent of those warning labels, meaning clear and credible information about what the activity does to household finances, the less we’ll have to unlearn later.
Kevin: Research helps move the conversation beyond anecdotes. Most people understand that sports bettors sometimes win and sometimes lose. What is harder to get a handle on is how sports betting affects households’ savings and financing decisions. Does sports betting affect how households save for the future? Does it influence stock market participation? Does it increase borrowing? Those are the kinds of questions our research so far focuses on answering. Our findings establish that, especially among households that bet more and that have less disposable income, increased sports betting reduces deposits to financial brokerages and increases high-interest debt.
What can we do with those results? This research can help policymakers, businesses, and households make better-informed decisions by identifying which groups are most affected by the introduction of online sports betting and how large those effects are. As sports betting continues to expand across the U.S., having credible evidence allows the debate to be guided by data rather than assumptions.
If I can editorialize a bit more about the possible broader implications of our research for the regulatory framework, first, it can potentially help states reconsider the deals they struck with betting operators and embolden them to seek a higher tax rate and residents to seek better oversight of where those funds go. Second, it can possibly help accelerate the trend away from sports betting platforms (where the house edge is 10–15%) to prediction markets (where fees are often a flat 2%, and the platform does not prey on losers and limit winners). Third, our research doesn’t speak to this directly, but over the course of our time working in the area, there seems to be some possible low hanging fruit to improve the current landscape that are at least worth considering: (i) constraining platform deposits made with credit cards; (ii) restricting “spot” or micro bets for individual plays of a game; and (iii) restricting sports betting advertisements during games (the U.K. already has such a whistle-to-whistle ban).
Since your “Gambling Away Stability” paper was initially published, and as your research on this topic has continued, what insights stand out that you think are important for the public to understand?
Kevin: Sports betting and financial market investing have a lot of similarities. Both can be fun. Both involve uncertainty. Both reward information and decision-making skill to some extent. And both offer the possibility of financial gain. The critical difference is expected value. Long-term investing allows households to participate in the growth of productive businesses and the broader economy. Sports betting, by contrast, is structured so that the average bettor loses money over time. People drastically overestimate their likelihood of making money in sports betting and, I’d argue, drastically underestimate their ability to build wealth through disciplined investing. Many people view investing as intimidating or stacked against ordinary investors. It is also true that disciplined investing is slow and often boring. However, that patience is precisely what investors are compensated for. Seemingly small sports wagers today, when aggregated together, can have large negative financial consequences down the line. Compounding works in the opposite direction for disciplined long-term investing.
I like to think one reason sports betting has value is because it introduces a wider set of people to the notion of evaluating risky tradeoffs, decision making under uncertainty, and their own risk preferences. However, all of those things are possible in financial markets, with significantly greater expected value. The challenge is that the feedback is much slower. Sports betting provides immediate wins and losses, while the benefits of investing often take years to materialize.
Justin: What strikes me most is that the feedback timing is exactly backwards from what would help people build wealth. Sports betting hands you a vivid win or loss in a matter of hours, which makes it feel informative and controllable, while disciplined investing pays off over years and feels like nothing is happening. We’re wired to chase the fast feedback, but the slow, boring process is the one with positive expected value. If our research does one thing, I hope it helps a few people re-channel that appetite for risk and decision-making into the arena where the math is actually on their side.