The world’s premier sporting spectacle will soon be upon us. We stand less than 100 days out from the FIFA World Cup when Canada, Mexico and the U.S. will play host.
This has witnessed a frantic scramble across the industry as those conducting business across a variety of areas aim to place themselves front and centre to capitalise on this huge opportunity.
In conversation with SBC News, Leigh Herdman, Founder and CEO at Algosport, explains how Algosport will take advantage of the occasion, as well as where further opportunities lie for exploitation across 2026’s sporting landscape.
How are Algosport’s plans for the World Cup shaping up?
Leigh Herdman: We have been hard at work at Algosport for the last 12 months or so in making sure our Soccer Bet Builder product is the best that it absolutely can be.
This has involved adding a significant number of new markets to our industry leading bet builder, and we have a pipeline of even more enhancements all the way through to June.
We have been mindful of requests from our valued customers and partners, and we believe that the Algosport bet builder will continue to lead the way in providing engaging products that an ever demanding end-user expects.
Added to this significant development, we have seen an increase in new customers and we are working flat out to support the launch of these new partners.
Alongside some Tier-1 European sports betting giants, we have seen increased interest from African and Asian facing operators, and we believe that these emerging markets, alongside LatAm, are likely to expand our already 200 strong customer base in 2026.
From a bet builder point of view, what will the World Cup mean for operators, suppliers and customers?
LH: We are hoping for a continuation of what we saw for bet builders in summer 2026, when we had the dual tournaments of the European Championships and Copa America within a short period of time.
Within these tournaments, interest in soccer bet builders accelerated rapidly, with territories and countries where usage may have lagged behind more mature markets showing huge growth.
Added to this, we also saw a significant increase in the use of in-play betb, with a growing proportion of bets placed after the start of games. This was a step change for Algosport and bet builders more generally, having previously perhaps been seen as more of a pre-match product, particularly within soccer.
However, we have always predicted that in-play would become vastly more important, and were one of the first suppliers to make in-play functionality, as well as a full bet builder cash-out service, standard across all of our sports, and therefore we believe we were ahead of the curve in this respect.
For the World Cup, we can only see this trend increasing and we are also predicting that this tournament will not only accelerate the uptake of in-play bet builders, but also see the trend of player markets and props continuing to drive customer engagement and indeed revenue.
All of our B2B and B2C partners are predicting a record World Cup from a betting point of view, and at Algosport we are hugely excited about the new products and features we are able to provide, plus the host of new operator customers who will be launching our services for the first time.
Is the World Cup the only area of interest for Algosport in 2026?
LH: Absolutely not! The year has started well as we saw an uptick in interest and revenue for our Ice Hockey product with the Olympics – this was especially pleasing after we had developed and launched in-play functionality for Ice Hockey in late 2025.
We have also been developing a cricket bet builder product over the last few months and we are really excited to get this live with new and existing partners.
However, it is fair to say that the months leading up to the tournament will be very soccer focussed, as we continually enhance our offering.
It will also probably not come as a big surprise, that the level of interest from operators and B2B suppliers in upgrading their World Cup offering has been high and growing over recent months, so as well as a robust pipeline of development, we have been hard at work closing out deals and getting new clients integrated and live.
Aside from cricket, does Algosport have plans in any other sports?
LH: We have a robust pipeline of enhancements for existing sports, but we are always looking at how we can expand our offering, particularly for clients who are extending their operations into new markets.
Alongside cricket which we are very excited to get live, we are planning on developing both MMA and boxing as new sports in 2026. We also have a prototype built for an innovative horse racing same race product, and we will be showcasing this to some of our partners in the coming months.
In regards to additional sports outside these, we are really guided by our valued partners in where they see revenue opportunities going forward – we have had requests for beach volleyball, winter sports and some motor sports and we will be evaluating all of these throughout the year.
Where does Algosport, and the bet builder product, go in 2027 and beyond?
LH: Being one of the early originators of bet builders, we have always pushed the product forward and we see no reason why this innovation will not continue in the coming years.
At Algosport, we are working on some new concepts that we believe will truly revolutionise how operators and their customers can enhance their betting experience, particularly on bet builders.
Development will continue throughout 2026, but we would hope to be able to offer new solutions that will vastly improve UI/UX for sportsbetting operators, plus allow customers to create markets ‘on the fly’, and not be restricted to the current linear range of betting markets that an operator is offering at any time.
We believe this will make betting quicker and easier, plus will be a key driver for a new generation of sports betting customers.