When the world watches football, payment infrastructure feels it first.
The 2026 World Cup is expected to generate record-breaking betting activity. Brazil alone may concentrate nearly 10% of global volume – close to R$19 billion within a few weeks. For merchants operating in regulated environments, this is not just a commercial opportunity. It is a stress test of operational resilience.
During major tournaments, millions of pay-ins and payouts are compressed into narrow time windows.
Acceptance rate becomes revenue. Settlement time becomes retention. Infrastructure stability becomes brand trust.
At OKTO PAYMENTS, a regulated Payment Service Provider (PSP), we do not treat global sporting events as unpredictable spikes. We engineer financial infrastructure designed for complex and demanding sectors – built to perform under pressure.
And preparation begins long before the first match starts.
From Reactive Coordination to AI-Native Anticipation
In high-performance sectors like regulated iGaming, operational patterns repeat. A major match approaches. Volume expectations rise. Customer Service teams prepare for increased requests. Risk monitoring thresholds are reviewed. Treasury and liquidity management are recalibrated.
Historically, this preparation often begins reactively – when a merchant flags an upcoming game expected to drive transaction volume.
But merchant-obsessed infrastructure should not depend on last-minute alerts.
During one of our internal AI sessions, a practical operational need emerged: we needed structured, proactive visibility into high-impact sports events that could drive payment peaks across local payment rails.
From that discussion, Matheus Vinicius Campos – from OKTO PAYMENTS’ operations team, engineered the Automated Sports Event Notification Workflow – an internal capability designed to anticipate transaction volume surges before they occur.
The Engine Behind the Anticipation
The n8n workflow operates based on a previously defined time interval and can be triggered on a weekly or daily basis, or even one hour before each game. The workflow can be configured to filter the most “active” games from the match schedule.
The output of this workflow is then transformed into a more structured list, allowing it to be presented through communication channels such as Microsoft Teams and Outlook.
A parallel workflow is already being developed for basketball finals and semi-finals, which historically drive elevated transaction attempts and customer activity.
It is important to clarify: AI is not embedded in the runtime logic of this workflow. Instead, AI supported its development. It accelerated JavaScript generation, strengthened logical structure, and enhanced reliability.
“AI-native infrastructure means using intelligence at the engineering level. This workflow was built to give our teams structured foresight into transaction peaks, so we can calibrate monitoring, routing and operational readiness before volume hits.”
Matheus Vinicius, OKTO PAYMENTS’ Operations team
This is what AI-native means at OKTO PAYMENTS.
Not a bolt-on feature layer. Not cosmetic automation. But infrastructure designed from the ground up with embedded intelligence supporting risk monitoring, optimization, and operational readiness. AI becomes engineering leverage.
Why Anticipation Directly Impacts Merchant Outcomes
In a World Cup scenario, anticipation materially influences performance metrics.
From a merchant perspective, pay-ins via PIX – Brazil’s real-time payment rail operated by the Central Bank of Brazil – must process instantly. Payouts must settle without delay. Settlement time directly impacts user trust, particularly when new users are onboarding at scale.
Acceptance rate becomes mission critical. Even small percentage improvements significantly influence revenue. At peak volume, decline rate monitoring, retry logic, and smart routing across payment orchestration layers become essential to maintaining performance.
For a PSP, the challenge resembles a compressed Black Friday environment within 90-minute match windows. Payment infrastructure must scale to handle millions of transaction attempts simultaneously. Direct and redundant connections to local payment rails must maintain stability. Real-time reporting dashboards must surface performance fluctuations immediately.
Customer Service also operates under extreme pressure. First-time bettors generate higher volumes of inquiries. AI driven automation absorbs repetitive questions while human agents focus on complex cases involving KYC, payout rules, or transaction reconciliation.
Without proactive event intelligence, these preparations rely on estimation.
With structured anticipation, they become deliberate.
The Automated Sports Event Notification Workflow reduces uncertainty. It enables internal teams to stress test infrastructure in advance, recalibrate risk controls, adjust monitoring thresholds, and align staffing – all before peak volume materializes.
This strengthens operational resilience across the payment infrastructure.
Precision-Engineered Infrastructure for Complex Markets
This internal capability reflects a broader strategic principle. OKTO PAYMENTS builds precision-engineered payment infrastructure for complex and regulated markets. We compete on reliability, compliance, performance, and measurable merchant outcomes – not surface-level features.
In high-volume environments like the World Cup, payments are not background utilities. They are controllable performance engines. When engineered correctly, they increase conversion rate. They protect acceptance rate. They reduce decline rate. They accelerate settlement. They support liquidity management. And they protect merchant reputation.
The Automated Sports Event Notification Workflow may operate internally, but it embodies our philosophy: infrastructure should anticipate market reality.
That is what it means to play differently.
Not adapting generic ecommerce systems. Not reacting to volume after it happens. But building AI-native financial infrastructure designed for how complex markets actually operate.
Engineering Before the Whistle Blows
The World Cup will test merchants, payment flows, and support teams across Latin America.
Volume will spike. User expectations will rise. Tolerance for friction will shrink.
At OKTO PAYMENTS, readiness is not a reactive state.
It is engineered in advance.
Because in complex and regulated environments, scale is never accidental – it is precision-engineered.
This is what it means to Play Differently at OKTO PAYMENTS. Not as a tagline, but as a strategic lens. It means building AI-native payment infrastructure designed for how complex markets actually operate. It means competing on reliability, acceptance rate performance, settlement speed, and operational resilience – not surface-level features. And it means anticipating volatility before it becomes friction. Ahead of the World Cup, and beyond, OKTO PAYMENTS plays differently by engineering performance before the peak arrives.
