Blask, an AI-powered platform researching the gambling market, has published its Fantasy Sports 2026 analytics. This report is the first profound study of the vertical based on the company’s Index.
The document spans growth dynamics from July 2025 through June 2026. Overall, this review covered 100 countries. For the US, it provides a deeper look across all 50 states.
Major Insights from the Study
Analysts have compared the development pace of the fantasy sports and iGaming niches. The results showed that demand for virtual matches increased 3% YoY, lifting the vertical’s percentage in total internet search requests to 6.4%. Meanwhile, the whole online gambling business reached 60.8 million Blask Index points, up 0.7%, during the reported period.
The review proves that the trend is rather massive:
- In 49 of the 100 studied markets, the fantasy segment grew in both volume and share.
- Only 25 countries experienced drops in both metrics for the sector.
- In 22 GEOs, demand rose, and the total portion fell, while 4 jurisdictions saw the opposite.
The platform’s experts suggested that this shift towards virtual matches is structural. They do not believe it was just a scattered, temporary spike.
Fantasy Sports on the Rise
Compared to seasonal baselines, the vertical shows declining demand during international football tournaments, such as World Cups or UEFA championships. During the 2026 FIFA competition, search requests went down 16.8%. This dip occurs because fans shift to more hyped, media-promoted sporting events, while club leagues pause, reducing attention to virtual matches.
At the same time, a decrease related to seasonal baselines hardly affects the full-year growth trajectory. Despite this dip, the segment still surpassed iGaming by over x4 in YoY demand rise. This advantage suggests the fantasy sports category is more resilient to calendar-tied fluctuations.
According to the report, medium-sized markets led in development speed:
- Lithuania — +100%.
- Romania — +94%.
- Hungary — +90%.
As for top volume, Great Britain and the US remain the clear leaders. Their combined share amounts to 40% of total demand for virtual matches.
Blask’s analysts also highlighted that growth rates and overall scale evolve unevenly. Jurisdictions that rank highest on each of the 2 metrics' lists do not overlap.
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