Five years ago, if you told a British bookmaker that baseball would be one of their fastest-growing sports markets, they’d have laughed. Today, nobody’s laughing. The global sports betting market sits at approximately $125 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $325.71 billion by 2035, growing at a compound annual rate of 11.24%. Baseball — once dismissed as a niche American obsession — is riding that wave in ways that have surprised even the industry’s own analysts.
The US Market Boom
The engine driving global baseball betting growth is the American market. Americans legally wagered $166.94 billion on sports in 2025, with operator revenue reaching $16.96 billion. For context, the Super Bowl alone generated a record $1.39 billion in legal bets — a single event producing more handle than some countries’ entire annual sports betting markets.
That explosive growth is a post-2018 phenomenon. The US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the federal ban on sports betting opened a floodgate that shows no sign of closing. State-level legalisation has reached the majority of US states, each one adding new bettors, new tax revenue ($3.71 billion in 2025 alone, up 32.4%), and new liquidity to a market that was once concentrated in Nevada. MLB benefits directly from this expansion because baseball’s daily schedule makes it a natural fit for the habitual bettor — there’s always a game to bet on from April through October.
The operator landscape reflects the market’s maturity. FanDuel and DraftKings together control roughly 75% of the regulated US market, creating a duopoly with the resources to invest heavily in product development, data partnerships, and user acquisition. That investment produces the most sophisticated MLB betting products in the world — same game parlays, live micro-markets, real-time statistical feeds — which in turn attract more bettors and more volume. The cycle is self-reinforcing.
International Expansion: Beyond American Borders
The 2026 World Baseball Classic drew 1,619,839 spectators — a 24% increase over the previous record set in 2023. Commissioner Rob Manfred has called the WBC “a springboard for the rest of our international efforts,” and the attendance data validates that ambition. The tournament featured teams from across Asia, Latin America, Europe, and Oceania, each bringing domestic audiences who then maintain interest in MLB through the regular season.
Japan and South Korea have long been significant baseball betting markets, with domestic professional leagues and deep cultural connections to the sport. Latin America — particularly the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Cuba — contributes a disproportionate share of MLB talent, creating natural rooting interests that translate into betting activity. Australia has shown growth following the introduction of MLB exhibition games, and European markets beyond the UK are beginning to stir as well. The growth frontier, however, is Europe — and the UK sits at the centre of that expansion, with its established betting infrastructure and regulatory framework providing a ready-made distribution channel for MLB content.
MLB’s investment in the London Series is the clearest signal of its European strategy. Chris Marinak, MLB’s Chief Operations and Strategy Officer, has identified the UK as “a priority market” for the league’s international growth. The London games aren’t exhibitions — they’re regular-season fixtures with full stakes, designed to cultivate a permanent British audience rather than stage a one-off spectacle. Each series introduces tens of thousands of new fans, and a meaningful percentage of those fans become bettors.
The UK as a Growth Market for MLB Betting
Interest in baseball among British sports fans has climbed from 4% in 2019 to 5.9% by 2023 — a nearly 50% increase in just four years. That growth curve has steepened since the London Series became an annual fixture, and industry insiders expect it to accelerate further as more UK media covers the sport and more bookmakers expand their MLB offerings.
Andrew Rhodes, CEO of the UK Gambling Commission, has noted a broadening of the sports offering at UK operators, with American sports like basketball, NFL, and baseball showing growing usage. That trend is driven partly by media exposure, partly by the daily availability of US sports during hours when European sport is dormant, and partly by the influence of US sports culture on younger demographics — bettors aged 18-24 are nearly twice as likely to wager on sport compared to older groups.
A 2026 survey found that 68% of UK gamblers expect to increase their betting activity during the year, primarily driven by the football World Cup but with spillover into other sports. Baseball stands to benefit from that general uplift because its season runs through the summer months when domestic football is in its off-season. UK bettors looking for daily action between May and August increasingly turn to MLB as the primary available market — a seasonal dynamic that barely existed five years ago.
The structural case for MLB betting from the UK is strengthening on every front: growing audience, expanding bookmaker coverage, improving data access, and the sport’s inherently bettor-friendly low hold rate. The regulatory environment is tightening — the Remote Betting Duty increase from 15% to 25% in April 2027 will squeeze margins — but the fundamentals of baseball as a betting product remain exceptionally strong. The question isn’t whether baseball betting will continue to grow in Britain. It’s how quickly — and whether the early adopters who’ve built their analytical frameworks now will still hold an edge by the time the mainstream catches up.
