Football, Lotteries and Betting in the Region
Football is Iraq's great shared passion. Around the region, the question of who may bet on it, and on lotteries, is answered very differently from country to country.
Few things unite Iraqis like the national football team. When Iraq won the AFC Asian Cup in 2007, beating Saudi Arabia 1–0 in the final in Jakarta with a header from captain Younis Mahmoud, celebrations filled the streets across the country at a time of deep division. In January 2023 Basra hosted the Arabian Gulf Cup, the first time in decades that Iraq had staged a major regional tournament, and the home side won the trophy after a dramatic final against Oman. The new stadium in Basra, opened in 2013, became the stage for that celebration.
Betting at home: not allowed
Betting on football, like other gambling, is illegal in Iraq. Fans argue about results, predict scores among friends and play prediction games for bragging rights, but there is no licensed sportsbook in the country. The same is true across most of the Gulf.
Where betting is regulated
- Turkey runs a state-licensed sports betting system, widely known as İddaa, alongside its national lottery.
- Israel has a state-regulated sports betting body and a national lottery.
- Lebanon has a national lottery, and gaming is concentrated in its licensed casino.
- The United Arab Emirates launched a national lottery in late 2024 under its new federal regulator, the first of its kind in the Gulf. Long-running raffles linked to airports and retailers had existed earlier under specific permissions.
Understanding odds
Whatever the law says, the mathematics of betting is worth understanding, because it explains why bookmakers and lotteries make money. Odds are a price that reflects an estimated probability. Decimal odds of 2.00 imply a 50% chance; odds of 4.00 imply 25%. If you add up the implied probabilities of all outcomes in a football match as offered by a bookmaker, the total is always more than 100%. The extra is the bookmaker's margin, the built-in edge that works like a casino's house edge.
| Outcome | Decimal odds | Implied probability |
|---|---|---|
| Home win | 2.10 | 47.6% |
| Draw | 3.30 | 30.3% |
| Away win | 3.60 | 27.8% |
| Total | 105.7% |
In this illustrative example the margin is about 5.7%. Lotteries usually keep a much larger share of ticket sales for prizes, costs and good causes, which is why the odds of a jackpot are so long. A lottery is a game of pure chance; football betting at least involves judgement, but the margin means that most bettors lose over time.
The beautiful game first
For most fans in Iraq none of this matters much. The joy is in the match, the café television, the chants and the long arguments afterwards. For the history behind the mathematics of odds, see our article on how probability grew from Baghdad to the casino floor.