Americans distrust sportsbooks with their data, yet continue betting

• A new SEON survey of 588 US adults reveals an interesting contradiction ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup
• Despite concerns over data security, betting intent remains strong, with 56% planning to watch the tournament and 43% "somewhat likely" to place bets
• The findings also point to risky betting behaviors such as multi-accounting, promo chasing, and social media-driven promotion-hunting

A recently published survey by SEON has highlighted an interesting dichotomy between how American sports fans plan to approach the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup and how they feel about sportsbooks.

Among bettors, trust in sportsbooks, and specifically those companies’ ability to protect consumer data, is thin, and yet nearly 50% of all bettors intend to use the sportsbooks to wager on the upcoming soccer bonanza, despite the mistrust.

Americans don't quite trust gambling platforms, but they love the World Cup

SEON used a sample of 588 US adults surveyed. 56% of respondents intend to watch the World Cup, with 43% also "somewhat" likely to bet on upcoming matches, and 45% confirming that they did not fully trust betting platforms with their personal and financial information.

"We work with some of the largest betting and gaming operators in the world, and what we hear consistently is that the challenge isn’t just catching bad actors. It’s distinguishing between a real customer chasing a promotion and a coordinated fraud ring doing the same thing at scale," noted SEON President, GTM, Matt DeLauro.

SEON dug into other behaviors surrounding betting patterns, including how often customers sign up at multiple platforms to access promotions, or how likely they were to follow up on a link they saw on social media.

According to the survey’s findings, 22% of respondents signed up at different sportsbooks to specifically access promotions, whereas 20% clicked on social media links or messaging apps.

Interestingly, 17% of everyone used another person’s - family or friend’s - betting account to place a wager. These patterns have been linked to a higher incidence of fraud and have posed a challenge to sportsbooks, as the company continues to try to root out gamblers who do not use their own accounts, as well as only look for bonuses.

But this was not all there was to SEOn’s findings. For example, Millennials are far more likely to believe that sportsbooks protect their platforms - 77% of this specific generation said that they were very confident that sportsbooks did protect their personal data.

Millennials are a trusting lot

Millennials are also the most likely to have opened multiple accounts to secure promotions (38%) or to have shared their personal information to access a betting promotion (29%).

This generation is also the most likely to turn to prediction market platforms (36%). Another generation, Gen Z, sees free bets as a strong reason to play at a platform, with 44% of respondents in this group responding that this would be enough for them to consider exploring a platform.

However, this poses the already outlined dilemma - offering too many promotions drives high user churn, where people are only looking for the next promotion and the next sportsbook that is offering it.

In the meantime, prediction market apps are already on the rise, with 19% of respondents saying that they opted for this particular platform. This is still behind the number of people saying that they preferred betting apps - 29%, but it is a noticeable trend.

When it comes to gender divides, there are no great surprises there, SEON notes. Men are more likely to gamble on the World Cup than women - 49% to 35%, and they are twice as confident in gambling platforms’ ability to protect their personal data (44% to 25%).

"Consumers plan to bet, yet they don’t fully trust the platforms they’re betting on, and nearly a quarter are already engaging in behaviors like multi-accounting that make fraud harder to detect. That combination of high volume, low trust and blurred intent is what makes events like this so difficult to protect," DeLauro wrapped up.

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