Kaizen Gaming Unveils Betting Highlights for UEFA EURO 2024™ and CONMEBOL Copa América™️ 2024

Athens, Malta, 18 July 2024 – With Spain and Argentina crowned champions in the UEFA EURO 2024™ and CONMEBOL Copa América™️ 2024 respectively, Kaizen Gaming, the official sponsor of both tournaments through its international brand, Betano, and the brand it manages in Greece and Cyprus, Stoiximan, shares the top bets and betting habits of its customers throughout the two competitions.

This data is derived from the Betano and Stoiximan platforms in 15 markets around the world.

Spain dominate Europe, knocking France and England off the top spot after Group Stage

Despite France and England being initial favourites, Spain’s exceptional performance – winning all its seven matches and setting a record for most goals in a tournament – made them the most popular team to win the European Championship attracting 15.4% of all bets.

The most popular games among platform users were Spain vs. England (2-1) in the final, Austria vs. France (0-1) in the group stage, and Spain vs. France (2-1) in the semi-finals. Spain, England, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, and Turkey were the teams attracting the highest betting stakes overall.

Yamal shines, Olmo comes from the bench to become top goal-scorer

On individual player performance, only 4.1% of Betano and Stoiximan users foresaw Lamine Yamal as the player with the most assists, at 25/1 initial odds. Kevin De Bruyne (10/1) was the tournament’s pre-favourite. Furthermore, only 2.4% predicted the combination of Spain winning the trophy and Lamine Yamal winning “top assistman”, which at the beginning of the tournament had staggering odds of 135/1. More expectedly, Yamal also won the UEFA Young Player of the Tournament award. 22% of users chose the Barcelona youngster for this category, only behind Jamal Musiala (23%), although Jude Belingham was the odds favourite at the beginning of the tournament.

However, the winning combination of Spain and Dani Olmo for the double of Euros winners and Top Scorer was the most unexpected of them all, selected by only 0.4% of the Betano and Stoiximan users. After all, Olmo was not even considered a starting player for Spain until Pedri’s injury during the first knock-out game against Georgia. It’s no coincidence that all the relevant bets on Olmo started from July 6^th onwards, after he scored his second goal (out of three in total) in the competition against Germany. Top choices at the beginning of the competition were England and Harry Kane, as well as France and Kylian Mbappé at 5% each.

The European Championship’s MVP, Rodri, was selected by 5% of the users to win this distinction, despite not being among the competition’s initial favourites. He started the competition at 40/1 odds, while Mbappé’s and Bellingham’s initial odds were 8/1 and 9/1 respectively.

Lucky results for fastest goal by Albania and own goal disputes settled fairly

Albania’s Adrian Bajrami scored the fastest goal in the history of the European Championships just 23 seconds into their match against Italy, breaking the previous record of 67 seconds. This remarkable feat came about as a result of a defensive error by the Italians. With odds at 5/1 on this record to be broken, only 55 lucky users believed that this could happen.

Furthermore, in the France vs Belgium match on July 1st, due to a discrepancy regarding the goal scorer (Kolo Muani or Own goal), Betano and Stoiximan decided to settle both Kolo Muani and own goal as the correct outcomes.

James Rodriguez wins MVP at 75/1 odds and breaks the record for most assists!

Argentina, the most successful team in Copa America history and current champions, was predicted to win the competition in “back-to-back” fashion by 23% of users, as they were considered the grand favourites right from the beginning. On the contrary, Brazil, selected by 18.5% of platform users, had a disappointing tournament, being knocked-out in the quarter-finals. Throughout the tournament, the teams attracting the highest number of bets were Argentina, followed by Colombia, Uruguay, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, and Paraguay.

The matches attracting most interest were the final between Argentina and Colombia (1-0 in extra time), Argentina vs. Ecuador (1-1, 4-2 in penalties) in the quarterfinals, and the semifinal featuring Uruguay vs. Colombia (0-1).

Lautaro Martinez, with initial odds of 11/1, attracted 8.3% of users as the Top Goalscorer, while Lionel Messi, the favourite at first odds of 4/1, garnered 22% of users. Martinez and Argentina as the winning combination for Top Scorer and Winner, starting at odds of 23/1, captured 8.5% of users, narrowly trailing Messi and Argentina at 7.5/1 odds, which attracted 9.3% of users.

A notable surprise for fans was James Rodriguez, starting at 75/1 odds, chosen as Player of the Tournament by 30.1% after the Group Stage. Lionel Messi and Emiliano Martinez were the other top choices, attracting 19.7% and 30.2% of bets, respectively.

Except for a surprise tournament MVP, James Rodriguez also emerged from this year’s Copa America as a record breaker. His 6 assists broke the previous 5 assists record in a single tournament. In total 189 Betano and Stoiximan users across the world foresaw that this record would be broken.

Individual statistics and the most popular competition in Nigeria

Last but not least, both competitions saw a significant increase in bets concerning individual statistics, which made up for 7.9% of total stakes for the European Championship and 7.6% in Copa América. It’s also worth noting that Betano users in Nigeria, an African country participating in neither of the competitions, placed 3.6x as many stakes on the European Championship compared to Copa América.