Anestis Grazdanis, Altenar: “Managing risk during a World Cup is a balancing act between keeping your prices attractive and protecting your margin”

Anestis Grazdanis, football monitoring manager at Altenar, shared how sportsbooks are preparing for the football tournament.

Interview.- As the FIFA World Cup prepares to capture the attention of football fans worldwide, sportsbooks are gearing up for one of the busiest betting periods on the calendar. Live wagering, player-focused markets, and Bet Builders are expected to drive engagement throughout the tournament, while operators face the challenge of managing unprecedented betting volumes.

Anestis Grazdanis, football monitoring manager at Altenar, spoke about expected traffic levels, evolving betting trends, the growing importance of Bet Builders, and how risk management strategies help balance competitive pricing with sustainable margins during football’s biggest event.

What in-play betting is expected at the World Cup compared to “normal” weekends?

The World Cup largely differs from a normal weekend. Usually, you’ve got bets split across dozens of different leagues, based on region and personal preferences. But during the tournament, everyone is locked into the exact same match at the exact same time. It creates this massive traffic.

More than half of the action we see during these big tournaments happens in-play. On top of that, such tournaments also bring in more new bettors, who usually get hyped following their favourite teams or favourite stars – a truly highly appreciated category of bettors, since they cannot be categorised as sharp bettors and contribute greatly to the total volume.

Moreover, this year’s tournament itself is unusual too: there will be 40 additional matches – 104 instead of 64 – which by default indicates that there is an increase of almost 40 per cent of available games compared to the last one.

What are the popular betting trends, and how can operators improve the UX?

As for what people are actually betting on, the days of just picking a winner or a draw are long gone. Fans are obsessed with micro-markets and player props now. People want to bet on what’s going to happen in the next five minutes, like who gets the next corner or yellow card.

Because everyone follows individual superstars, props like player shots, passes, and cards are massive. To stop people from getting buried under thousands of different betting options, a dedicated tournament lobby with smart layouts can highlight trending player bets and stats so users can find what they want instantly.

How are Bet Builders priced and how do margins compare to other bet types?

Bet Builders have gone from being a cool extra feature to a non-negotiable requirement. Pricing them is tricky because the selections are tied together. If you bet on a team to win 3-0, the odds of their star striker scoring are obviously connected. A solid mathematical engine has to calculate those correlations on the spot to give a fair price.

“Fans are obsessed with micro-markets and player props now.”

Anestis Grazdanis, Altenar.

We recently rolled out Bet Builder Direct Calculation, which allows players to combine compatible selections directly from the main market groups without switching tabs, alongside Bet Builder Bundles to pre-package popular outcomes.

Live betting is expected to dominate engagement throughout the World Cup. What role does Altenar play in delivering a seamless in-play experience?

To handle that kind of volume, Altenar’s advanced real-time trading capabilities utilise high-quality, official sports data feeds to ensure that live odds update instantly, mirroring the real-life action on the pitch. Our risk management and unique bet-acceptance logic are specifically designed to achieve this goal.

How can operators balance competitive pricing and margin protection?

Managing risk during a World Cup is a balancing act between keeping your prices attractive and protecting your margin. You have a lot of money riding on the favourites, which creates massive liabilities. The best way to handle this is by profiling accounts quickly, letting casual bettors enjoy high limits, while keeping a close eye on sharp bettors.

Automated alerts combined with the experienced traders watching the screens meticulously help flag weird betting patterns, to ensure commercial sustainability without compromising the user experience.