Ronald Wittek / EPA
Spain coach Luis de la Fuente doesn’t want to believe he lost two points to Cape Verde; but a Polymarket user lost a million dollars…
The Polymarket odds for a bet on the certain victory (so it seemed) of Spain against Cape Verde were so low that anyone who bet a million dollars would win “only” 85 thousand. It was so right, so right… that everything went wrong — and a million dollars went down the drain.
Many see Spain as the big favorite to win the World Cup. So why not bet a fortune on Spanish victory in the opening game of the tournament, against little Cape Verde?
That’s what a “genius” did at Polymarket — and the bet went disastrously wrong.
According to pre-game odds from , an anonymous account bet almost US$1 million on Spain’s victory over the Cape Verdeans, with just over 500 thousand inhabitants, and was preparing to receive $1,085,943.48.
But when the final whistle sounded, the score read 0-0. Cape Verde’s heroic defense, led by a 40-year-old, collapsed this titanic gamble — and also cooled Spain’s World Cup hopes.
Few could have predicted that Spain would be left blank against the 67th team in the official FIFA ranking, after having crushed the competition at Euro 2024, says .
But, unlike the “genius” who lost his million, there was a user of the popular prediction market who won more than nine million dollars by betting that Spain would not win the game and also in a handicap according to which Cape Verde would not lose by three or more goals. It went well.
Still, betting such a large sum, no matter how safe the odds seemed, reveals a certain degree of arrogance that prediction market platforms like .
These platforms claim that users bet against other players, not against the house — which, as everyone knows, always ends up winning. The proposal, in short, is this: if we monitor the situation closely enough, we can make easy money at the expense of the most distractedwho are not up to date with events.
But, no matter how much someone boasts about having access to occult knowledge, the unpredictable happens. Perhaps, still, our unfortunate bettor should have monitored the situation more carefully: if he had looked back, he would have seen that Spain have only won their opening game at a World Cup once since 2010.
