World Cup Prediction Markets Trade
probability
Will A Nation That Has Never Won the World Cup Win in 2026? presents an arbitrage trade.
Spain, France, England, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, and Italy are the 7 nations that have won the World Cup and are participating in this year’s World Cup.
What if we bet YES on “Will A Nation That Has Never Won the World Cup Win in 2026?” and hedge it by betting YES on all 7 of the previous winners?
This is what the trade looks like:
In the most ideal scenario, if you can get all the contracts filled at the best bid price, you can make a good riskless profit $0.046 per $0.954 wagered.
However in practice, you might experience some slippage and/or adverse selection while you try to hedge out your position when your initial limit orders get filled.
What you can do to mitigate risk
- Set a limit order at the 0.310 price for the “Never Won” market.
- If the order is filled, quickly buy the cheapest NO contract for a country that has not won the World Cup before. In this case, it would be Portugal at 0.895. You may be able to get it filled as a resting limit order and avoid the taker fee.
- Use Polymarket’s NegRisk feature to convert the NO contract into YES contracts for every other country.
- Sell down the YES contracts except for the 7 nations that have won the World Cup before, and wait for the market to resolve.
Why do the trade this way? Because the “Never Won” market trades very thinly, posting liquidity is the only way to get your money in at a good price.
Instead of buying the YES contracts for the 7 previous winners directly, using NegRisk conversion to indirectly buy YES contracts reduces the chances of getting picked off.