The betting history of the World Cup: Biggest upsets, long-shot surprises, odds of winners
The 2026 World Cup will introduce a new format with 48 teams competing across three countries. Historical data suggests that while favorites often win, at least one top team typically exits early in the tournament. Long shots have come close to winning, with notable upsets occurring in recent World Cups.
- ▪The 2026 World Cup will feature a 48-team field and a new tournament format.
- ▪Only twice has a team with double-digit odds won the World Cup, with 11 of the last 15 winners having odds of 6/1 or shorter.
- ▪At least one favorite has been eliminated early in five of the last six tournaments.
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| Original publisher | New York Post |
| Canonical URL | https://nypost.com/2026/05/21/betting/the-betting-history-of-the-world-cup-biggest-upsets-long-shot-surprises-odds-of-winners/ |
| Publication time | Thu, 21 May 2026 12:00:00 -0400 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-21T16:01:31.036Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-21T16:01:31.036Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | -sP-eboQeCho |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Betting The betting history of the World Cup: Biggest upsets, long-shot surprises, odds of winners By Michael Leboff Published May 21, 2026, 12:00 p.m. ET Lionel Messi celebrating Argentina's win at the 2022 World Cup. AFP via Getty Images See more of our coverage in your search results. Add The New York Post on Google Gambling content 21+. The New York Post may receive an affiliate commission if you sign up through our links. Read our editorial standards for more information. The 2026 World Cup will start a new era in international soccer. For the first time in the tournament’s history, it will feature a 48-team field (up from 32) and will be played in three different countries. The expanded field will also bring with it a new format.
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