Online Betting Guide Weblog

The 2014 Football World Cup is the obvious highlight of the 2014 sporting calendar. From June 12th to July 13th, billions of people around the world will tune into 64 football matches featuring 32 qualifying national teams.

The event is being talked up as the biggest betting event in history. This should come as no surprise as football is estimated to have 70% of the global sports betting market share, with between £305 billion and £437 bet on the sport globally every year using both legal and illegal bookmaking services.

To put this into perspective, the amount bet on football every year is approximately 10% of the GDP of the world’s 3rd largest economy – Japan.

World Cup years see the amount bet on football surge even further. As William Hill spokesman Nathan Sharpe noted before the 2010 World Cup: "Almost by definition, turnover increases exponentially every four years.”

The number bandied about before the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa was £1 billion in betting turnover for the UK market alone. This estimate tended to be close to the mark, with a number of bookies reporting excellent profits – with Ladbrokes earning over £8 million in profits while Paddy Power made £15 million and William Hill scored a cool £32 million profit.

Bookie profits are, of course, reliant on results on the pitch. The 2010 World Cup did bookies several favours. For a start the tournament winners had a shaky start that saw few people back them early on, then Argentina, Germany and Brazil were all eliminated before making the final despite attracting significant betting in the outright markets.

This means bookies will need their fair share of good fortune at the 2014 World Cup to turn a decent profit. Should they match or exceed their numbers from 2010, betting affiliates are in for a good year.

Not only will the World Cup spur an increased interest in football betting, and offer huge conversion potential, but even a tiny slice of the profits pie will return a massive windfall if bookies come out on top.

Even a 1/1000 slice of the William Hill pie will return affiliate revenue of around £10,000 for the months of June and July if Hills match their numbers from 2010.

Put simply, the 2014 World Cup is a critical event for anyone active in the sports betting business – from punters, to bookmakers and their affiliates.

While the total profit will only become clear once the final numbers have come through from the top bookies, affiliates have a rare opportunity to take a share in tournament that could reasonably expected to generate a trillion pounds in betting turnover.