World Cup Mints Big Prediction Winners and Million-Dollar Losers

The World Cup is turning prediction markets into a public ledger of million-dollar bets, exposing big wins and dramatic losses as the tournament attracts more money to the fast-growing industry.

More than $5 billion has been traded on the World Cup across Polymarket’s international exchange and US-regulated Kalshi Inc. in 2026, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of Dune Analytics data and company records. The boom has produced multimillion-dollar winners and some painful losses, including a bet-gone-wrong on Belgium to beat Egypt that cost one Polymarket user nearly $9 million.

The wagers offer a real-time view into the risks ...