A user of the Polymarket platform under the pseudonym fishalive risked a sum of about $427,000 and took a payout of more than $4.7 million. This happened after Spain's national team failed to beat Cape Verde at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The deal became one of the largest single transactions in the entire history of the platform. Such an unexpected outcome of the match astonished both football fans and regular participants of the prediction market.

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A million-dollar bet on the prediction market

Polymarket is the largest decentralized platform for predictions. On the platform, users buy "yes" or "no" shares on a variety of world events. In this case, fishalive chose the "no" option against a Spain victory. Notably, before the start of the game bookmakers estimated the probability of such an outcome at just 9%.

The match took place on June 15, 2026, as part of the opening round of the group stage. The tournament is jointly hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Because of the format's expansion to 48 participants, Spain's national team ended up in Group H. Its opponent at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta was a modest debutant from Cape Verde, so "La Roja" was considered the absolute favorite of the encounter. However, the game ended in a sensational scoreless draw of 0:0.

Spain was initially a clear favorite with all the key bookmakers and on prediction platforms, with even Polymarket putting its chances above 90%. However, the European team utterly unexpectedly failed to live up to the fans' expectations.

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Source: BeInCrypto