Don’t miss your last shot at $50 FIFA World Cup seats.
New York City’s six-day lottery wraps up on Saturday. Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced last week that 1,000 tickets would be available at $50 apiece, roughly the cost of “five lattes” in the five boroughs, he said.
A maximum of 50,000 people can enter per day starting at 10 a.m. Once the lottery hits that mark, it closes until the following day. It took just three minutes to hit that number on Day 1. You can’t enter more than once per day.
The program covers the five group- stage matches and two knockout-round matches, with about 150 tickets allocated per game. Alas, that means no tickets for the July 19 final. You also have to be at least 15 to enter.
Randomly selected winners will be notified by email on June 3. If you win, you’ve got 48 hours to buy two $50 tickets. You can’t pick them up, though, until the day of the match — and that pick-up has to be in person.
Winners will be offered free round-trip bus service to their matches. Tickets are non-transferable in order to prevent scalping and secondary market resale. The tickets will also only be handed out directly to the fans as they board the bus on game days.
1,000 World Cup tickets. $50 each. All for New Yorkers.
We fought hard to make the people’s game available to the people — and won.
Let the summer of soccer begin. pic.twitter.com/CakNsxtF6b
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) May 21, 2026
During his campaign, Mamdani had called on FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, to make it cheaper for New Yorkers to attend the games by setting aside 15% of tickets at discounted prices for residents. He’d also launched a petition calling on FIFA to reverse its plan to set ticket prices based on demand.
The Athletic reported that Mamdani earned the concession in a meeting with FIFA president Gianni Infantino back in March. Learn more here.
The $50 tickets don’t come directly from FIFA, but from those allotted to New York and New Jersey’s joint host committee for the games, according to the mayor’s office.