Polymarket’s $3.3B World Cup boom exposes the longshot trap inside prediction markets

Prediction markets are drawing one in every of their largest sports activities audiences but from the World Cup, however the surge is creating an uncommon image beneath the headline numbers.

World Cup-linked contracts on Polymarket have generated greater than $3.3 billion in buying and selling quantity, a stage that places the event effectively forward of this yr’s Tremendous Bowl, which drew about $1.4 billion in prediction-market buying and selling.

The comparability displays how shortly event-based buying and selling has moved into main sports activities, with soccer’s world attain giving platforms a a lot bigger and longer runway than a single championship recreation.

In the meantime, the growth is just not restricted to Polymarket. Kalshi and different prediction-market venues are additionally seeing heavy exercise tied to match outcomes, event outcomes, and associated soccer contracts.

But the buying and selling exercise is just not flowing cleanly towards the groups more than likely to win. Because the event strikes into the Spherical of 32, prediction markets are displaying two tales directly: a slim race between the highest contenders and a considerable amount of capital nonetheless connected to groups priced as excessive longshots.

France and Argentina set the tempo

France has change into the market’s slim favourite to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with Argentina shut behind.

On Polymarket, France is priced at a 23% probability of successful the event. Argentina follows at 21%, leaving the 2 finalists from the 2022 World Cup nearly stage on the high of the board. Spain is third at 11%, England is fourth at 10%, and Brazil is fifth at 6%.

World Cup Winner Bets on Polymarket (Supply: Polymarket)The identical sample is seen within the market for groups to achieve the ultimate. France leads that contract with a 39% implied probability, whereas Argentina is second at 38%. Spain follows at 23%.

That positioning suggests merchants are more and more getting ready for the potential for one other France-Argentina closing, 4 years after the Messi-led Argentine crew lifted the trophy in Qatar.

The quantity across the main groups additionally displays that focus of consideration. Argentina has drawn about $81 million in winner-market buying and selling, whereas France has attracted about $77 million. Portugal has seen roughly $76 million, Spain about $68 million, and England about $61 million.

These numbers present a transparent demand for the favorites, however they don’t clarify the most important imbalance on the board.

Longshots carry billions in quantity

About $1.6 billion has been traded on groups with an implied successful likelihood of 1% or much less. That determine accounts for roughly two-thirds of the buying and selling on the winner market, though these groups are priced as having little real looking path to the title.

A number of of the closely traded longshots nonetheless present massive historic quantity. Ivory Coast has drawn about $101 million. Mexico has moved about $97 million. Egypt has attracted roughly $90 million. Cape Verde is close to $87 million, whereas Morocco has seen about $82 million.

The hole between quantity and likelihood factors to a quirk of prediction markets. A high-volume contract doesn’t at all times imply merchants at present imagine an consequence is probably going. It might merely imply many trades occurred earlier within the event, earlier than odds shifted sharply.

Moreover, some positions can also be tied to longshot hypothesis, fan-driven shopping for, hedges, parlays, or trades that customers haven’t closed.

That leaves some markets trying extra energetic than the present possibilities recommend.

It is because Cash can stay connected to groups even after the market has largely moved on from them. In contrast to a sportsbook, the place odds can reset round new betting traces, prediction-market contracts proceed buying and selling till settlement or till customers exit their positions.

The impact is particularly clear when put next with the main group of contenders. A basket of France, Argentina, Spain, England, and Portugal prices about 72 cents mixed at present costs. If any a kind of 5 wins the event, the place pays $1.

That commerce displays how concentrated the market’s confidence has change into, whilst billions in historic quantity stay scattered throughout outsiders.

In that sense, the World Cup board isn’t just a rating of who’s more than likely to win. It is usually a report of how merchants moved by the event, the place they entered early, which tickets grew to become stale, and the place liquidity has did not unwind totally.

A wider prediction market surge

The extreme exercise surrounding the worldwide soccer event is driving broader institutional adoption and consumer acquisition throughout the prediction market sector.

Wall Avenue brokerage agency Bernstein initiatives that World Cup-related buying and selling may in the end surpass $10 billion in whole wagers earlier than the event concludes on July 19.

This sporting catalyst can be having a measurable spillover impact on non-sporting contracts.

Final week, enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz printed data indicating that non-sports buying and selling quantity, encompassing geopolitical occasions, macroeconomic knowledge releases, and elections, reached $3.6 billion throughout Kalshi and Polymarket mixed.

In response to the agency, this non-sports quantity alone is now bigger than the whole combination quantity of all prediction markets recorded only one yr in the past. In July 2025, weekly non-sports quantity hovered close to the $200 million mark, representing an 18-fold enhance over the previous 12 months.

Total, the enterprise capital group famous that weekly buying and selling volumes throughout the prediction market ecosystem reached an unprecedented $14.5 billion final week, with excellent open curiosity at a report $1.6 billion for the third consecutive week.

Oversight questions develop louder

The business success of the World Cup markets arrives alongside renewed authorized scrutiny for the sector.

The Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC) has reportedly opened an investigation into Polymarket.

The probe, first reported by The Wall Avenue Journal, comes as client safety advocates and a few states push for nearer oversight of prediction-market platforms. Polymarket and Kalshi have grown quickly as customers guess on the whole lot from sports activities and elections to crypto costs and financial-market outcomes.

For Polymarket, the investigation provides uncertainty after the platform resumed restricted US operations final yr. The corporate had beforehand been barred from serving US clients following a 2022 enforcement motion.

The timing is notable as a result of it comes as prediction markets are posting report volumes, simply as regulators are taking a more in-depth take a look at how the sector operates, how shoppers are protected, and the place the road needs to be drawn between regulated occasion contracts and playing.