The World Cup has ended, and a PolyBeats review of the tournament’s prediction markets found a familiar pattern at the extremes: outsized winners, deep losers, and Cabo Verde showing up as the biggest variable across several of the most notable trades.
The three highest-volume matches were the final and the two semifinals, with combined volume of about $519.86 million. The Argentina-Spain final alone recorded $212.1 million in trading volume.
Account performance during the tournament split sharply. The sample included long-horizon traders who covered the full event and cleared more than $10 million in net profit, as well as concentrated accounts that realized several million dollars from a single match.
Top-performing accounts
One of the most eye-catching returns came from aHjCz. In the exact-score market for Argentina vs. Cabo Verde, the account bought “No” on the outcome “Argentina 1–1 Cabo Verde?” at an average cost of just 0.001. The total cost was about $40.35, and the position ultimately generated $37,506 in profit.
That works out to net profit of about 929.6 times cost, or roughly 930.6 times total return including principal.
Another standout was swisstony, a broad-coverage trader rather than a one-shot bettor. The account participated across all 104 matches in the tournament, captured 8,815 candidate positions, and posted $10.32 million in net profit, the highest net gain among identifiable accounts in the sample.
Based on its account history, swisstony has been active in sports prediction since 2025 and has logged about 145,000 historical trades. The trading pattern points to a long-running, diversified approach across sporting events.
fishalive represented the opposite style: one match, one decisive call. The account only traded Spain vs. Cabo Verde, but still booked a large payoff through two positions aligned in the same direction.
In the market asking whether Spain would win, fishalive bought No at an average price of 9.02 and made $4.13 million. In the Spain (-2.5) handicap market, the account bought Cabo Verde at an average price of 44.37 and made another $4.75 million. Together, those positions produced a reported net profit of $9.06.
Both positions reflected the same view: Spain would not win the match.
Largest losing accounts
On the losing side, coldsway traded across 11 matches and 17 captured positions, ending with a net loss of $10.81 million, the largest loss among identifiable accounts in the sample.
The account was not wrong on every trade. Winning positions added up to about $5.08 million, but losing positions reached about $15.89 million.
Its biggest single loss came in Canada vs. Morocco. The account bought No on “Morocco to win” at an average price of about 46.01 and ultimately lost about $4.95 million. PolyBeats described that trade as closer to a misread on a roughly even matchup than a clear miss on a low-probability upset.
FlickRaw took an even more concentrated path and traded only two matches, but both positions went to zero. The account lost $3.29 million after buying the Netherlands to beat Japan, then lost another $1.51 million after buying Belgium to beat Egypt. Total net loss came to $4.8 million.