The FIFA World Cup 2026 will be unlike any version of the tournament that has gone before. Hosted for the first time across three nations and with more teams and more matches than ever in a World Cup, it means there are several new factors to consider for sportsbooks pricing up the event and assessing the likely winner.
In expanding the tournament, FIFA allocated qualifying places to regions that had been under-represented at previous tournaments, such Oceania and Africa.
One consequence of this move is that the 2026 World Cup will feature more lower-ranked teams. Twelve of the 48 teams (25 per cent) are ranked 50 or lower, with the lowest ranked team being New Zealand in 85th place.
In 2022 the lowest ranked team was in 60th place and the mean average rank of the 32 teams was 22. By contrast, in 2026 the mean average rank of the 48 teams will be 32.5.
The weakening in the ranking profile of competing teams is reflected in the outright prices on offer.
Spain is generally priced at 5.5 (18 per cent) to win the tournament, which is about the same price as was available on Brazil as favourite ahead of the 2022 World Cup.
In theory, Spain should be a bigger price than the 2022 favourite purely on the basis that the 2026 World Cup has more teams competing and a finalist will have to play an extra “round of 32” match, compared with 2022.
Sportsbooks have taken the view that the additional teams do not bring any extra competitive threat.
The teams will also face contrasting playing conditions across the three host nations this summer.
In Mexico City and Guadalajara, high altitude could play its part in a team’s performance, whilst heat and humidity could be factors in Miami, Monterrey, Kansas City and elsewhere.
Depending on how a team qualifies from its group, it could face travelling to a different country and climate for the knock-out stages. An ability to adapt to conditions will be needed if a team is to progress to the later stages of the tournament.
With the expansion of the tournament to more teams and the range of playing conditions, there will be a greater number of mismatches in the group stages. This could lead to higher scoring games and there is some evidence that the sportsbooks are factoring this into their pricing.
During the first round of group matches in the 2022 World Cup, 37.5 per cent of games had more than 2.5 goals.
For the 24 opening round games in 2026, bet365 has 10 matches (41.7 per cent) priced up as having over 2.5 goals.
The qualification from the group stages has also become more complicated because of the expansion of the number of teams.
In previous World Cup tournaments, the top two teams of the four in each group qualified for the later stages. In 2026, eight of the 12 best third-placed teams will also now qualify.
Groups were previously self-contained, in that results in one group did not influence who qualified from another. But with a league table for the third-placed teams, results in one group could help or hinder teams in another in their bid to secure qualification.
The third-placed league table will be decided by: total points, then goal difference, goals scored and perhaps even disciplinary points if teams cannot be separated.
With the extra “round of 32” being added to the 2026 World Cup, a team reaching the final will play eight matches in the tournament, rather the seven needed in previous editions. It might be only one additional match, but fatigue, injuries and suspensions could all play a heightened part in the later stages.
FIFA has tried to mitigate the risk of suspension influencing the longer tournament too much by ruling that single yellow cards will be removed from a player’s disciplinary record both after the group stage and after the quarter-finals.
Alongside all the structural changes to the tournament, World Cup 2026 will be the first one in which sportsbooks can make substantial use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for their pricing and risk management.
Leading the way is Kambi Group and the company’s CEO Werner Becher has stated Kambi’s pricing for the World Cup will be entirely AI automated.
Given all the unique factors that are specific to this edition of the tournament, it will be intriguing to see how a fully-automated AI sportsbook performs.
Data from previous World Cups might be less useful as a learning tool for AI systems in pricing up the much-altered 2026 tournament but AI will be better placed than manual trading to cope with the added complexity.
Data gathering: an AI system can pull data from several sources, such as structured official data feeds and unstructured information from news sites and social media.
Data processing: vast amounts of data can be formatted and structured within seconds so that it can be channelled into the predictive models.
Predictive modelling: the system can run thousands of scenarios and simulations to inform the implied probability of an outcome.
Price generation: with the implied probabilities calculated, prices can be derived within the set margin parameters.
Risk management: as new information enters the system, including the weight of money on different outcomes, it can alter prices in line with the liability limits.
Validation checks: the system can monitor competitors’ prices to ensure no arbitrage opportunities are available and that it is not out of line with industry consensus, within a specified range. As a last resort, the market is suspended until the anomaly is resolved.
Case study: the mystery of the 1998 World Cup final
The real test of an AI-driven betting system will be if an unusual or unexpected event occurs during the tournament.
Ahead of the 1998 World Cup final, Brazilian striker Ronaldo was not named in the official starting line-up submitted an hour before the match against France, without explanation.
About 30 minutes later, a revised team sheet was issued with Ronaldo reinstated. Brazil went on to lose 3-0, despite being the pre-match odds-on favourite. It subsequently emerged that Ronaldo had suffered a seizure in the hours before kick-off.
How would AI react to such an event in 2026?
Market suspension: a high-impact data anomaly is recognised when the team sheet data feed excludes a key player like Ronaldo and markets are suspended.
Recalculation: the predictive model is re-run with the new information and recalculates metrics like ‘expected goals’ to account for the change of player in the line-up.
Price change: having run numerous match simulations, related markets are repriced.
Markets re-open: within about 60 seconds of the data anomaly being detected, the revised markets are back in play much more quickly than a manual trader could ever manage.
Collecting unstructured data: the system continues to gather data from social media and news feeds regarding the unexpected event.
Prop bets remain suspended: any prop bets and micro bets involving Ronaldo continue to be suspended as more data is gathered.
Risk management: As money comes for France, the system’s liability algorithm ensures its rules are not breached either by reducing maximum bet limits or reducing France’s price and perhaps automatic hedging in the prediction markets.
Conflicting data: when the second, revised team sheet is issued with Ronaldo now included it creates a data conflict in the AI system and markets are automatically suspended.
Data validation: the data feeds are checked against news feeds and the conflict is resolved.
Recalculation: mirroring the process earlier when Ronaldo was omitted, the system either recalculates or restores the predictions made for when Ronaldo is in the team. Markets are re-opened.
Balancing the book: having taken large amounts on France when it seemed Ronaldo was not playing, the book is likely unbalanced. AI works within its risk management parameters to try to balance the book by altering the prices on each team. As before, hedging in the prediction markets might be an option.
Sportsbooks want markets suspended for as little time as possible when there is new data or uncertainty, especially for big games like the World Cup final.
The great benefit of an AI system is than it can gather, analyse and react to data far quicker and with less emotion than manual trading teams, thus reducing suspension times to a minimum.
AI systems might be efficient at reacting to unexpected events but, just like humans, they have an inherent weakness in predicting them. An algorithm cannot be trained on data that does not exist.
So, for all the changes to the tournament, sportsbooks are expecting more of the same in 2026. The betting markets make it a 75 per cent chance that one of the seven previous World Cup winners competing this year will triumph again.