Sports betting surges during 2026 Winter Olympics, OHIO expert believes 2028 Summer Games will see more wagers

Whether it was to contemplate the quirky game of curling, watch electrifying skiers and snowboarders take to the air or witness USA women’s and men’s hockey bring home the gold, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympic Games drew the most U.S. viewers in more than a decade. The recent Winter Olympics averaged 23.5 million American viewers daily making them the most-watched by a U.S. audience since 2014. 

One potential explanation for the surge in viewership may be a rise in wagers. The 2026 Winter Olympics are also likely to be the most bet on, in addition to being one of the most viewed Winter Games. 

Ohio University O’Bleness Professor of Sports Administration Jim Strode, Ph.D., says that when sports fans place bets, they’re more likely to become invested in the outcome, and thus more likely to watch an event. Strode is an expert in sports betting and recently examined the influence of bettor behavior and bias in sports gambling markets.

“It’s not surprising that we’re seeing this spike in the United States because of the 38 states that have legalized sports gambling, plus Washington D.C.,” said Strode. “It is certainly creating more eyes toward the Olympic Games, because if people have money on the line that’s creating more eyeballs on the television with people watching the games.”

The accessibility of sports betting apps and the increased legalization across the U.S. has contributed to more gambling during nearly every major sporting event. Strode says that he first observed a spike in Olympic wagers during the 2024 Paris Games, but he expects that growing trend to continue.

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Although this Winter Olympics will likely end up being the most bet on Games, the Olympics are generally a small deal in the North American sports betting sector when compared to other spectacles. Events like the Super Bowl and the Kentucky Derby far surpass the Olympics in terms of the amount wagered by U.S. sports gamblers. Strode believes that this is due in part to some of the niche sports that take place in the Winter Games.

“When you look at the winter games we’re dealing with a handful of sports that we all recognize and know, but the majority of sports we have no idea what we’re watching other than we see it every four years,” he remarked. “It’s not surprising that we’re not necessarily seeing folks put money on the outcome of these sports that they aren’t very familiar with or don’t understand.”

Strode says that sports bettors for the most part are intense sports fans, so they enjoy relying on intuition, heart and feeling like experts when they place their bets. As a result, there is a lot more action on sports that are more commonplace in the U.S., like hockey.

“Ice hockey is the sport that is bet on the most in the Winter Olympics,” said Strode. “We recognize the players on the roster because they’re NHL or PWHL players.”

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The biggest betting action this year was on hockey, familiar to most Americans, curling, a relatively easy to understand “bar game” similar to darts and medal counts, an outcome-based bet that is easy for gamblers to understand.

In a similar pattern of behavior, Strode found that U.S. bettors are most likely to bet on Team USA. This is also due to the familiarity with the athletes but may also be a display of national pride.

“Sports fans aren’t logical, we bet with our hearts. We won’t bet against our team, so certainly we wouldn’t bet against our country,” he said. “It makes sense that people are betting for their home country, even if they don’t have all of the information or depth of knowledge about a specific sport.”

The same way bettors are drawn to the familiar, they tend to avoid the unfamiliar or subjectively judged. There were far fewer bets placed on judged events like figure skating, freestyle skiing and slopestyle snowboarding, as well as on niche events like luge, skeleton and the biathlon.

With the 2028 Summer Olympics Games coming to Los Angeles, excitement is already in the air for many in the U.S. Since the Olympics will be on home turf, Strode estimates that significantly more American sports bettors will be getting in on the action for a variety of reasons.

The Summer Olympic Games have more than three times the number of events than the Winter Games. With that increased volume of events, that is essentially triple the number of opportunities to place a bet. The Games being held in California also eliminates a potential time zone barrier for some gamblers. The ability to make live bets will certainly lead to more betting, according to Strode.

“When you’re turning on the television prime time, you’re seeing a live sporting event, so that might entice more folks to open up their betting apps,” said Strode. “The betting apps are going to be pushing out notifications for those live events.”

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There’s no doubt that there will likely be a lot more sports gambling happening during the upcoming Summer Games but Strode also wonders how directly sports betting apps will be tied to the Olympics. Sports gambling firms like Draft Kings, FanDuel, BetMGM and many more have already weaved their way into the fabric of leagues like the NFL, NBA and MLB, will we see them in the next Olympics?

“I don’t know much about the sponsors of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee,” said Strode. “But it will be interesting to see if the sports gambling industry will have gotten involved in sponsorships similar to what we have with our professional sports leagues in America.”