Colombia’s gambling industry now represents more than 2% of the country’s gross domestic product after the 2026 World Cup fueled record betting activity across the country. National accounts from DANE show that entertainment as a whole has practically doubled in size since before the pandemic, climbing roughly 100% between late 2019 and early 2026 while Colombia’s overall GDP grew just 16% over that same stretch, pushing entertainment’s share of the economy from under 3% before the pandemic to 4.7% today, ahead of construction and mining.
Gambling sits at the center of that transformation, since Corficolombiana’s analysis found that production tied to this activity jumped 444% in current pesos and 314% in real terms between 2019 and 2024, expanding its share within total entertainment production from roughly a fifth to about half.
