The World Cup, the most famous sports tournament in the world, brought the excitement and pride of international soccer to our backyard — and 104 high profile games to place bets on.
Online sports bettors in Florida are in their majority men aged 18 to 34, according to a poll from the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, which is also the demographic most likely to tune in to the almost daily soccer games this summer. Experts underscore that the first World Cup since the legalization of sports betting in Florida will attract more people to the practice and fuel already existing gambling addictions.
Sportsbooks like Hard Rock Bet, the only legally authorized sports betting platform in Florida, have predicted high-earning numbers and increased interest in their services.
"Everything is bigger about this World Cup: more games, more teams, more action. This is genuinely the biggest sports betting event there has ever been, and betting volume will exceed the Super Bowl and March Madness combined," wrote a Hard Rock Bet spokesperson to WLRN.
Gambling companies like Hard Rock and DraftKings have emphasized a commitment to “responsible gaming” with different tools in their apps and websites that will let customers create limits of time and money spent betting.
Lori Kalani, DraftKings' chief responsible gaming officer, said they also manually limit and intervene in cases where they see users exceeding high amounts of money or spending a lot time gaming at late hours.
“It's really important that people understand what, how to play, understand the rules and the risks that come with the play and really use the tools that are available,” Kalani said. “Those tools are for everybody, and it's good to set them and look at them before anybody ever places a dollar on any game.”
Despite these guardrails, sports fan culture increasingly relies on betting as a way to engage and the practice brings very little friction or barriers to entry, so experts and anti-gambling advocates worry about the long-lasting effects the World Cup will have in South Florida.
According to the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling, the region — which is hosting seven games at Miami Stadium — has a high concentration of people with gambling issues. Between 2023 and 2024, half of contacts to the nonprofit's helpline came from the region, with 25% from Miami-Dade, 17% from Broward and 8% from Palm Beach.
No barrier to entry
For many the upside of sports betting is its accessibility. You can have your phone in hand and place multiple bets in a matter of minutes, while you watch your favorite sport.
For recovering compulsive gambler Daniel Bianchi, who works with support groups to help recovering gambling addicts, this is also the key danger of sports betting in the digital age.
“When I was gambling 25 years ago, it was a whole different landscape. They've made it too easy. When I gambled on sports you had to figure out the odds… it was a complicated situation,” Bianchi said. “By making it easy, that's been able to pull a lot of young people into it.”
In addition to their quick download and set up, sports betting and gambling apps let players bet on almost anything. Players are able to place microbets on small aspects of the game — like whether an athlete will score a penalty kick or how many passes someone will make — in what is called “live betting,” meaning you play as you watch the game.
Bianchi said he’s seen more young people than ever become compulsive gamblers over the wide variety of categories they can bet on.
“ I've seen… these young people coming in, it's just amazing what they tell me they can bet on. You can bet on whether the sun's gonna come up, whether it's gonna rain in Chicago today,” he said.
Many of these bets can be made through what are known as prediction markets.
In Florida, a 2021 gaming compact with the Seminole Tribe makes Hard Rock the only gambling company legally authorized to run retail and sports betting in the state. At the time, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the tribe’s “new initiative will create jobs, increase tourism, and provide billions in added revenue” for the state.
However, other companies like DraftKings, Kalshi and FanDuel are able to operate in the state with prediction markets and futures contracts trading — meaning you bet against another person or entity, not the house.
These companies are regulated by the federal agency Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and can operate under federal law. Kalshi, Polymarket and the CFTC have ongoing political litigation in nine states that challenge whether the prediction markets violate state laws on gambling. Florida is not part of this litigation.
Ads on the pitch
Another key point of concern for anti-gambling advocates is the amount of advertising that has followed the legalization of sports betting and sports prediction markets.
From DraftKings’ ad to the song “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers to Hard Rock Bet spots with Colombian soccer legend Carlos Valderrama, World Cup broadcasts are filled with advertisements for these platforms. The advertising boards around the pitch show companies like Kalshi and FanDuel as sponsors. Mobile apps like the ESPN app, where fans follow scores and stories around the tournament, also include odds of each team winning so fans can prepare their bets.
Danny Funt, a journalist with expertise on sports betting and the gambling industry, said this constant advertising and presence across sports platforms has been effective in attracting new business.
“ There's a lot of evidence to suggest that kind of advertising is really damaging in terms of encouraging people to bet, making it seem cool for young people,” Funt said. “Also if you have any sort of problem, the fact that you can't watch a game without constant reminders about gambling is really hard.”
Sports broadcasters and sports leagues may also benefit indirectly from showing these ads and being sponsored by gambling companies, Funt said.
"A way that's harder to quantify but a huge piece of [revenue] is the indirect money they make from their audience growing because it's well documented that gamblers watch a lot more sports than even passionate fans," Funt said.
"They also watch to the ends of games that might be blowouts, but they wanna see how a bet ends up playing out, whereas if all you cared about was who won or lost, you'd have lost interest."
Economic effect and help initiatives
Les Bernal, the National Director of Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation, said he is concerned about the effect events like the World Cup have on compulsive gambling numbers, especially for the economic stability of Floridians.
”Essentially hundreds of thousands of Florida residents are suffering life-changing financial harm because of betting on the World Cup. That's money that people would have used to pay a medical bill, to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage,” he said.
The Florida Coalition for Compulsive Gambling reported that in 2025, more than half (57%) of online sports bettors cited difficulty paying household bills due to gambling — 92% gambled with their savings and 46% sold or pawned assets for money to gambling away.
The Seminole Tribe of Florida, who run the Hard Rock casinos and the Hard Rock Bet app, provide financial contributions to the state-sponsored helpline and other gambling addiction help services. A minimum contribution to the helpline of $250,000 per facility is required in the 2021 gaming compact.
The state-sponsored helpline used to be 1-800-ADMIT-IT with the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling, but after the end of their contract in 2024, the state now funds the helpline 1-833-PLAYWISE.
Hard Rock International also offers a gaming education program called PlayersEdge that focuses on "promoting informed choices, positive play, and understanding of risks."
A spokesperson from Hard Rock Bet gave WLRN a statement emphasizing the company "remains steadfast in its commitment to responsible gambling."
"The Seminole Tribe of Florida has provided decades of support for responsible gambling initiatives in Florida including significant financial contributions to support the state’s gambling helpline, compulsive gambling prevention, and treatment programs," the statement read.
Daniel Bianchi’s biggest concern, as someone who used to spend his paychecks away in sports betting, is how common the practice has become. He believes sports betting is now deeply ingrained in current sports culture.
“ I do think that gambling is eclipsing other forms of entertainment, and I think what you're gonna see coming forward is that some people doing gambling more than they're going to movies, more than they're golfing, more than other activities,” Bianchi said.
With the World Cup nearing its end, Bianchi fears these new gamblers might turn to other sports to get the same betting high.
