It’s been a historic couple of months for the bookmakers in Sin City, as the NFL, MLB, and NBA are all producing big-time bets across the board. The World Cup will be played for the first time during the fall months. This is wild, but it’s bad news for said bookies. The Las Vegas sportsbooks aren’t expecting big World Cup numbers.
Normally, this would never be the case. The World Cup happens every four years, and people love betting on soccer teams. In the USA, soccer might not be the biggest sport, but people love dipping their betting hands into unfamiliar things. In the past, World Cup betting had been strong in the U.S. because the summer months are quieter in terms of events.
However, it has completely flipped the script with things being in Qatar this year and starting in late November. This is the time of the year when people are locked in on the NFL betting odds. They check the best-rated sportsbooks, which includes the reliable Bovada review, for NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA odds, and more. This isn’t when the World Cup is supposed to take center stage.
“Soccer betting, in general, has increased year after year,” assistant director of trading at Caesars Sportsbook Adam Pullen said in a recent interview with ESPN on the World Cup this fall. “I would expect the same thing to happen if this were a normal World Cup in the summer. But it’s going up against football, NBA, hockey, and college basketball.”
As you might have guessed, there’s big concern for the sportsbooks on World Cup betting. As we mentioned above, the World Cup is a great chance for the casinos and sportsbooks to lock in a big amount of revenue, but with things being in Qatar, it complicates things. The time difference between Qatar and the different time zones in the USA means people will miss games and be less inclined to visit the best World Cup betting sites.
There will be contests at the break of dawn in the morning, which is going to turn people off from not only watching but betting as well. In the summer, what’s better than watching some soccer, placing bets, and seeing the action live? This was so special in the past for so many supporters of the game. The Las Vegas sportsbooks make games so fun too.
The sportsbooks are always covered with TVs with the games featured from start to finish. Now, though, the atmosphere is going to be completely different. November and December aren’t popular vacation months for Las Vegas, as normally, the summer and fall are when people love to make their way to Sin City. This all adds up to potential downfalls for World Cup wagers.
Despite all of that, the Las Vegas sportsbooks surely will do their best to try and reel people in with some sort of promotion or special events for each day of the World Cup. However, Pullen’s quote on behalf of the Caesars Sportsbooks sure was concerning – and you better believe he’s not the only executive in Nevada with his concerns.
It goes without saying, but people remain furious with the World Cup being in Qatar. When it was announced that Qatar was awarded the 2022 edition, people were up in arms, especially after it was revealed that games would be played in November and December. Countless higher-ups in Las Vegas are unhappy about things, with millions of dollars expected to be lost.
“I just told them (colleagues) that I don’t know what kind of action we’re going to get on World Cup games that are being played at two in the morning,” Westgate Las Vegas executive director of the SuperBook John Murray said via ESPN. “And what I really don’t know is how much of the action will be new and how much of it will be money that pulled out of what we would’ve done on football or basketball.”
All in all, there are just loads of issues with this tournament being played in Qatar and not over the summer. Las Vegas will take a big hit, and there’s no doubt about that. However, it’s not just Las Vegas that will be struggling to bring in bets – this is going to be an issue all over the United States and across the globe as well, for that matter, which is rough to see.
Luckily for everyone worried in Las Vegas, the USA, Canada and Mexico will host the World Cup in 2026. With this, we should see a major bounce-back for the sportsbooks four years from now. Over the next month or so, though, officials in Vegas shouldn’t get too excited about the numbers that are about to come in for them from the World Cup.
