How to Make Money Betting on the 2026 World Cup

Most people bet on the World Cup because it makes watching the games more fun. I make my living from betting. It’s not just a hobby – it’s been my main source of income for the past 10 years. And to be honest, once you have a family, you start to view betting in a completely different light.

And that’s exactly why I’m going to show you how professional bettors view the World Cup in a completely different way than the average fan.

Because at tournaments like this, bookmakers make the most money off people who bet emotionally.

Take advantage of the surprises

First of all, I want you to know that there will be plenty of surprises at this World Cup, because that’s inevitable in tournaments like this. But that won’t stop you from making money – on the contrary, you’ll actually be able to capitalize on those very surprises. Now I’m going to show you three statistics from the last World Cup:

Surprises are breaking records

The last World Cup had 15 upsets — the most in the last 64 years — But this one has 16 extra matches. Think about that.

Underdogs are a sure bet

If you had backed every underdog in the group stage with $100, you would have made exactly $5,190 pure profit. And that’s because one upset at massive odds wipes out 20-30 losing bets on its own – and there are far more upsets than people realise.

High odds pay off

if you had backed every team priced at 5.00 odds or bigger, by the end of the World Cup you’d have been up 42.2 units.

Forget the favourites, pick the underdogs

This happens because the majority of bettors back favourites. Bookmakers know that, so they load all their margin onto them – that’s basically their commission. Meanwhile, underdogs are often left almost commission-free. It’s like buying bananas at wholesale price.

I want you to remember one sentence that completely changed the way I looked at betting 10 years ago when I first became profitable:

“To make money, it’s not important to predict what happens in the match — it’s important to find the wrong price.”

Betting is maths. It’s not about football knowledge or “knowing the sport”. We trade odds, and that’s all that matters.

The takeaway from this first point is simple: stop backing favourites no matter how tempting they look. Focus mainly on underdogs. Your chances of losing long-term are actually lower there, even if the odds make it seem otherwise You’re simply shopping without paying commission.

Find the highest odds

The second thing you need to understand is that bookmakers are basically our supermarkets. Every shop offers different prices. And if you genuinely want to make money, your job is to hunt for the highest odds possible, no matter what you’re betting on. That’s why you should have accounts with as many bookmakers as possible.

During this World Cup, betting companies will pour millions into bonuses, boosted odds and promotional offers because they know this is when the biggest wave of new customers arrives. There will be massive free offers available – and if you want to make money, you should be taking advantage of them.

Check out our World Cup predictions and focus mainly on these 2 things:

Increased odds or 0% margin

These are usually commission-free prices that reflect the true probability of an event happening. Which means over a large enough sample size of 100-200 bets, you shouldn’t be losing money.

Free bets

The second offer is free bets. My advice is to instantly convert them into real cash. For example, use the free bet on something very unlikely to happen, like Under 0.5 Goals at 5.00 odds. Then calculate the hedge on the opposite side and place it with another bookmaker. Best case scenario? You lose the free bet – meaning £0 of your own money – and still lock in £20 profit elsewhere that you can withdraw immediately.

And remember this: During the World Cup, the public bets on team names. Professionals bet on odds.

The lesson here is simple – you should have accounts with 5-10 bookmakers and constantly monitor their offers.

Accumulators are a trap

Now let’s talk about accumulators – because I know you love them. I know it feels better stacking multiple selections together and chasing a huge payout, but every extra selection increases the bookmaker’s margin and you end up paying massive hidden commission.

Accumulators are the fastest way to lose money in sports betting. They’re basically the casino version of betting. Bookmakers will constantly tempt you with offers like “Add 2 more selections for a bonus”, “Create a Bet Builder” and so on… If you let the bookmaker guide your decisions, you might as well prepare the money you’re about to donate to them. Accas are no different from the lottery – you’re relying on luck and constantly complaining that “only one match ruined it”.

With singles, you win smaller amounts, but much more consistently. You can actually build something. Houses are built brick by brick. At first it’s just a hole in the ground, then suddenly there’s a full house standing there. Singles work the same way. At the last World Cup alone, there were dozens of matches where favourites failed to win. One single upset destroys thousands of accumulators.

Manage your bankroll properly

Honestly, your bankroll size doesn’t matter nearly as much as people think. Even £50 is enough. Most of our customer students start with tiny bankrolls and within a few months they’re staking with £3-4,000 bank.

Your goal isn’t to start with huge money. Your goal is to manage it properly.

• If you have £50, stake around £3 per bet.
• If you have £500, stake around £10 per bet.
• Risk around 5% of your bankroll per bet.

Never go higher than that, because the best proven long-term strategy is flat staking until your bankroll grows by around 30%, then you adjust your unit size. The fastest way to go broke during the World Cup is chasing losses and increasing stakes after losing bets – especially when there are matches literally every day.

Bet on the hidden markets

Now onto the fifth point – what should you actually bet on? We already established that we mainly avoid favourites and focus on underdogs with overpriced odds. But that’s specifically for traditional match winner markets.

As professional bettors, our focus will mostly be on smaller and overlooked markets like shots, cards and similar props.

Why?

Because bookmakers build those lines mostly from statistics. But tactics completely change statistics. And during a World Cup, bookmakers barely have any tournament-specific data because it’s such a short competition.

Betting on shots – a practical example

During the Europa League final, we shared 4 player prop bets on shots and won 3 of them because we identified two repeating tactical patterns from both teams – high pressing and compact defending. It was obvious those patterns would lead to fewer shots, but the bookmaker’s line was set way too high at 25.5.

That meant we had a bet with real value. Once you understand how one team is likely to approach another tactically, look for shot markets instead of goals.

Focus on the “Under” markets

Focus mainly on UNDER markets because the public loves betting OVERS.

And your goal is not to follow the crowd — because that’s where money gets lost.

As Warren Buffett said: “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.”

Avoid live betting

That’s where emotions take over, you start chasing losses and betting after every goal. The margins are also much worse, and you need serious experience to spot mistakes live.

If you do bet in-play, my advice is to only do it when a favourite concedes an early goal and you back them immediately afterwards – for example with Double Chance markets. That’s one of the few situations where you might actually gain a small edge.

Final thoughts

Copy this spreadsheet onto your laptop and spend 5 minutes every day tracking your bets. That way you’ll know exactly how much you’re winning or losing, where the losses are coming from and what you need to eliminate.

The World Cup is a unique opportunity – a tournament that comes around once every four years and brings surprises, inflated odds, and offers you don’t see the rest of the time. The general public will bet emotionally on their favorite teams and lose.

We professionals will look for mispriced odds, bet on underdogs and hidden markets – and we’ll win. The question is which group you want to be in. And if you want to copy our predictions with full analyses of every single match, check out our subscription plans and choose the one that’s right for you.