As esports and esoccer move further into the mainstream, sportsbook operators have a growing opportunity to engage new audiences, smooth seasonal betting cycles and drive long-term customer value.
Read More The FIFA World Cup is the biggest event in global sports betting. For Kambi, it was also the ultimate proving ground for the AI-powered trading capabilities highlighted in its Q2 2026 Report.
Kambi’s Q2 2026 Report showed a business returning to growth, supported by commercial progress, disciplined cost control and an increasingly AI-first sportsbook. Nowhere was that progress more visible than at the FIFA World Cup 2026, where Kambi’s proprietary AI trading system helped partners manage record demand while delivering greater product depth, strong margins and complete platform stability.
As CEO Werner Becher explained in the accompanying results presentation, the tournament reinforced a simple reality: the future of sportsbook trading is automated.
Meeting unprecedented demand
Modern bettors expect far more than traditional match or outrights markets. They want personalised experiences, extensive player proposition bets and the ability to build highly customised wagers in real time. Meeting that demand manually is no longer realistic at scale.
During the World Cup final alone, Kambi processed more than one million unique bet combinations. Across the full tournament, its AI system priced and traded all 104 matches live, enabling partners to offer a near-limitless range of opportunities without a comparable increase in trading resources.
The benefits of AI extend well beyond scale. By automating pricing and trading processes, Kambi reduced live betting delays, minimised market suspension times and maximised bet acceptance rates throughout the tournament. These improvements created a smoother user experience at the moments when speed and responsiveness mattered most.
The impact was reflected in customer behaviour. Live Bet Builder activity surged, accounting for 22% of all live bets, compared to 3% during the 2022 World Cup. It underlined how quickly bettors adopt more sophisticated products when the experience is fast, reliable and intuitive.
Delivering at scale without compromise
Major sporting events often force operators to scale trading teams and infrastructure significantly. Kambi’s AI-powered approach enables a different model: using automation to deliver a high-quality product at peak volume while maintaining operational efficiency.
Crucially, this capability does not disappear when a major event concludes. As domestic football leagues, including the Premier League, return to action in the coming weeks, Kambi can continue delivering the same extensive offering without scaling products or services back.
The World Cup unsurprisingly represented one of the most demanding operational environments in sports betting. Despite extraordinary volumes, Kambi delivered 100% uptime throughout the tournament, providing uninterrupted service from the opening match to the final whistle.
Across the competition, customers placed more than 100 million bets, generating over €1 billion in turnover through Kambi’s Turnkey Sportsbook product. Millions more bets were also placed via Kambi’s Odds Feed+ service. Average turnover per match increased by around 20% compared to the 2022 World Cup, showing the commercial importance of performance under pressure.
The tournament also highlighted a broader shift across the industry. As betting experiences become more engaging and personalised, players are increasingly drawn to products such as Bet Builder, which accounted for 35% of all bets across pre-match and live wagering during the World Cup.
For bettors, this provides more ways to engage with the sport around their own predictions. For operators, it supports a more balanced commercial model that is less dependent on the outcome of individual matches, while Kambi’s diverse geographic spread and the power of its network enable it to balance risk more effectively across different markets.
Together with Kambi’s trading expertise and risk management, this helped deliver an operator trading margin of 18% during the tournament, demonstrating the value created through innovative product development and high-quality sportsbook operations.
Building a sustainable competitive advantage
The World Cup was not an isolated success story. It was the latest demonstration of a broader strategic transformation underway at Kambi.
Today, Kambi’s proprietary AI trading system is already pricing and trading five major sports: football, basketball, tennis, baseball and ice hockey. Recent major events, including Grand Slam tennis tournaments, have been traded through the system, while preparations are underway to extend automation into American football and additional sports.
The ambition is clear: to have more than 90% of sportsbook turnover managed through Kambi’s proprietary AI trading platform. Powered by extensive network data, liquidity, machine learning and trading expertise, that capability creates a competitive advantage that strengthens as the network grows.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup demonstrated what is possible when advanced AI technology is applied at scale to sportsbook trading. It showed that automation can improve customer experiences, deliver a vast combinable offering, increase operational efficiency and strengthen financial performance, while remaining reliable during the busiest sporting event on the planet.
Most importantly, it reinforced Kambi’s position at the forefront of sportsbook innovation. As AI trading expands across more sports and markets, the gap between traditional sportsbook models and automated, data-driven operations is set to widen.
