Brits spend more than £240 million on England game bets during World Cup

LONDON, UK, 23 DECEMBER: According to new data, Brits spent more than £240 million on England game bets during the recent World Cup tournament. This is according to Worldpay from FIS, which processes payments for some of the largest betting companies in the UK.

A combined total of 67.8 million payments were processed for FIS’ top 6 gambling merchants on match days during the World Cup tournament, an increase of 30% when compared to Euro 2020 tournament match days.

Key highlights include:

  • The France v Argentina Final saw the highest payment per minute (PPM) levels in the tournament with a peak of 11,500 PPM processed at 14:58, just before the 15:00 match kick-off. On the day of the final approximately 2.8 million payments were processed for Worldpay’s top 6 betting customers, with a total authorised value of over £50 million.
  •  Traffic profiles showed that England matches attracted the highest payment levels with their 5 tournament matches being the top 5 for payment levels outside of the final; the highest being the England v France quarter final match that saw payment levels peak at 11,000 PPM at 18:54 (match kick off 19:00).
  • During the 5 England matchdays a combined total of 13.7 million payments were processed for Worldpay’s betting customers, with a total authorised value of over £240 million.

UK pubs win big with England

  • Analysis of payment data for our leading pub merchants shows huge uplifts in payment traffic on the days of the England matches, with increases in excess of 60% when compared to the same day pre-tournament.
  • The weekend evening games for England against USA (Friday 25th Nov) and France (Saturday 10th Dec) were the busiest of the tournament, with peaks around 1,600 PPM processed just before kick off in each game. On the England v France matchday nearly 600,000 payments were processed for our leading pub merchants, approximately 200k more than normal Saturday levels.

Alex Morgan-Moodie, Director of Verticals at WorldPay, comments: “With the football season showing no let-up and returning for the hectic domestic festive season fixture calendar, pub and gaming merchants will be hoping for the next few weeks to be just as busy. And to help them capitalise on this busy period it’s now increasingly important for operators to invest in a smooth payments journey which can act as the differentiator to providing best user-experience.”