The Chinese state broadcaster CCTV and the China Sports Lottery, the only legal sports betting operator in the country, have released figures regarding the 2026 FIFA World Cup (June 8 - July 19, hosted by the USA, Canada, and Mexico) among Chinese audiences. Notably, the Chinese national team did not participate in the tournament. Here are the key highlights:
Bets (on individual matches via China Sports Lottery):
• $11.6 billion – total sales over the six weeks of the tournament.
• Weekly dynamics from June 8 to the eve of the final:
- $957 million
- $2.11 billion
- $2.27 billion
- $2.40 billion
- $2.35 billion
- $1.53 billion
• The peak occurred in the first week of the playoffs with sales exceeding $2.4 billion.
Viewership (according to CCTV):
• Over 70 billion – accumulated cross-media views by the eve of the final.
• 282 million – total audience for the final match Argentina vs. Spain, peaking at 41.23 million simultaneous viewers.
• 680 million – accumulated views for the playoff match Argentina vs. Switzerland, the highest reach of the tournament according to the broadcaster.
• 86.24% – share of CCTV platforms in broadcasting the World Cup in the country, with each match gathering over 100 million views.
Combating Illegal Gambling:
Chinese social network Weibo reported that it removed over 100,000 posts advertising illegal betting and unauthorized lottery sales, closed 120 groups, and sanctioned more than 50,000 accounts. The video platform Douyin (the Chinese equivalent of TikTok by ByteDance) identified 417,000 accounts promoting illegal betting and permanently banned over 90,000 profiles.
Despite the absence of the national team, interest among Chinese fans in the tournament remained high. The team has only reached the final stage of the World Cup once, in 2002, and did not qualify for the current tournament.