The 2026 World Cup is being celebrated worldwide by soccer fans and others who pay attention to this tournament that happens every four years and brings countries and people together. One of the companies likely celebrating the tournament is DraftKings Inc (NASDAQ:DKNG), which has had record engagement.
• DraftKings shares are climbing with conviction. Why are DKNG shares rallying?
DraftKings Stock Emerges as World Cup Winner
DraftKings announced Friday the launch of DKeX, a proprietary prediction markets exchange that is integrated into the DraftKings sportsbook and casino app.
The launch expands on the company’s previously released prediction markets with new backend vertical integration and the ability to keep users in one app, so they don’t use another platform for predictions.
DKeX comes from DraftKings’ previous acquisition of Railbird Technologies, a CFTC-licensed platform.
News of the launch sent shares of the sportsbook company higher Friday morning. Investors should also be paying attention to the numbers disclosed Friday by the company about the World Cup.
On Friday, DraftKings said its DraftKings Prediction segment is seeing strong growth during the World Cup. The company reported $3.4 billion in annualized consumer volume and $11.3 billion in annualized trading volume for the week ending June 21.
The company previously announced that one week into the World Cup, DraftKings Predictions had a 3x increase in first-time customers and saw trading volume up 87%.
The company’s prediction market also saw "combos," which represent around 40% of trading volume, with users putting more than one outcome into each prediction.
And it’s not just the company’s prediction markets segment that is winning.
After one week in the World Cup, the company said its handle on the event was five times higher than at the same stage of the 2022 World Cup.
DraftKings reported that the matches between the U.S. and Paraguay, and Morocco and Brazil, were the two largest soccer events in company history for betting handle and active customers who bet on the event.
This was, of course, data after only one match for each team, including the U.S.
What’s Next for World Cup
The group stage of the World Cup is nearing its end, and the top 32 teams will advance to the knockout rounds.
The U.S. team has already qualified, winning their group, and will face Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32.
In the 2022 World Cup, the U.S. faced the Netherlands in the round of 16 right after the group stage and lost, ending their tournament run.
A longer path for U.S. could be good for sportsbooks such as DraftKings in the U.S.
What some investors and analysts may be missing is the structure of this year’s global event. The 2026 World Cup included 48 teams, instead of the traditional 32 teams. The top third-place teams in the group stage will also move on, creating a new knockout bracket of 32 teams, instead of the usual 16.
This gives sportsbooks and prediction markets more games for consumers to wager on. The tournament features 104 games this year, up from 64 in the 2022 World Cup.
More games and the success of the U.S. team could be key factors in betting handle, seeing a significant increase from the last tournament.
DraftKings Stock Price Action
DraftKings stock is up 5.15% To $24.29 on Friday versus a 52-week trading range of $20.46 to $48.78. DraftKings stock is down 32.3% year-to-date in 2026.
Photo: Lori Butcher / Shutterstock
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