🔴 The guy who lost $1mio(!) on Spain drawing against Kap Verde

BOOM. It's already Monday.

The newsletter is back.

And this time, the world's greatest sporting event is well underway.

The World Cup has actually been running for more than a week already, and both Kalshi and Polymarket are absolutely boiling. Traders are piling into everything from group winners to golden boot markets. One platform that isn't quite boiling yet is FIFA's own official prediction market partner, which discussed last time… still no sign of life…

I'm still in London, and there are few better places to be during a World Cup. Every pub has football on. Every conversation somehow ends up being about football. And every second person appears to have a different nationality and a strong opinion about why their team is being underestimated.

England was off to a flying start.

What's fascinating is that despite reaching the last two major tournament finals, English fans still didn’t seem convinced that football is, in fact, coming home. Before the tournament, only around 20% of UK gamblers had England as favourites to win the whole thing.

That has changed very quickly. England has been repriced!

Here are some other news:

This might be the most important prediction market story of the year.

Not because a Spanish football club may or may not have hedged its relegation risk through Kalshi.

But because it forces everyone to confront an uncomfortable question:

Where exactly is the line between gambling and insurance?

According to reports, a top-flight Spanish club facing potential relegation found itself staring at a multi-million euro financial hit if results went the wrong way on the final day of the season. A hedge was reportedly put in place through a chain of intermediaries, ultimately connecting to Kalshi. The club denies using Kalshi directly and says it simply purchased a relegation-risk insurance policy through an international broker.

And honestly, that's where the story gets interesting.

Because professional sports have been using insurance forever.

Players insure their legs.

Teams insure tournaments.

Broadcasters insure events.

Concert promoters insure performers.

Nobody considers any of this controversial. In fact, most people never think about it at all.

The moment you replace the word "insurance" with "prediction market", however, people start reaching for words like gambling, insider trading, and market manipulation.

But economically, the difference isn't always as large as people think.

A farmer hedges wheat prices.

An airline hedges fuel costs.

A football club hedges relegation risk.

The underlying logic is identical: protect yourself against an outcome that would hurt your business.

What prediction markets are doing is dragging this entire world into the open.

Insurance has always existed behind closed doors, negotiated between brokers, underwriters, and lawyers. Prediction markets put the odds on a screen where everyone can see them.

That's why this story matters.

If a football club can hedge relegation risk, why can't a restaurant hedge a rainy summer?

Why can't a New York bar hedge free beers if the Knicks win?

Why can't a hotel hedge against a hurricane season?

The really fascinating thing isn't whether this particular trade was legal.

It's that we're starting to discover how many things in the real economy are actually hedgeable.

Prediction markets aren't inventing a new behaviour.

They're exposing an old one.

Businesses have always placed bets on the future.

Some of them just called it insurance because it sounded more respectable.

Meet betoor619.

For about 90 minutes, he had the easiest money in the world.

Spain, one of the favourites to win the World Cup, was facing Cape Verde, a nation making its tournament debut. The market gave Spain overwhelming odds. Betoor619 looked at the board and decided to risk $1 million to make roughly $84,000.

A nice day's work.

Maybe a beach house in Marbella.

Maybe a boat.

Maybe both.

Then football happened.

Spain looked slow, predictable, and oddly uninterested in the whole affair. Cape Verde defended like their lives depended on it. Disciplined. Physical. Organised.

Ninety minutes later, the market had delivered its favourite lesson:

A 92% probability is not 100%.

Boom.

A seven-figure position goes up in smoke.

What's even funnier is that the real story isn't the money.

It's the psychology.

At some point between placing the bet and kickoff, betoor619 almost certainly stopped thinking about risk. The profit became inevitable in his mind. The beach house was mentally purchased. The keys were probably already hanging on an imaginary hook.

Then eleven men from Cape Verde arrived and introduced him to the difference between "very likely" and "guaranteed."

The account hasn't looked the same since… it’s been very…. inactive

Neither, I suspect, has the beach house search.

I actually like the Netherlands trade.

Not because I think they'll win the World Cup.

I don't.

But prediction markets aren't always about being right in the end. Sometimes they're about owning an asset that becomes more expensive.

The Dutch are the perfect candidate for that.

Historically, they're a tournament team. They almost never arrive as favourites. They almost always annoy somebody much bigger than themselves. Then, before you know it, they're standing in a semi-final while an entire nation in orange shirts has convinced itself that destiny is finally calling.

That's where the opportunity lives.

At 5-6%, you're not really buying the Netherlands to win the World Cup.

You're buying the possibility that they win their group, knock out one heavyweight, and suddenly become the hottest story in Europe.

At that point you don't need them to win.

You just need to find a Dutch buyer.

And trust me, if the Netherlands reaches a quarter-final, there will be no shortage of enthusiastic Dutch people willing to explain why this is finally their year.

The risk, of course, is that the market already knows most of this. Advancing from the group doesn't move the needle much because it's expected.

What moves prices is surprises.

A convincing win.

A statement performance.

A heavyweight scalp.

That's when tournament markets go slightly insane.

My base case is still that the Netherlands eventually run into a France, Spain, or Argentina and get sent home.

But between now and then?

There may be a perfectly good trade.

The goal isn't necessarily to hold the trophy.

The goal is to sell the dream.

You can STILL get your hands on the very free Priced In beginners guide to Prediction Markets here

Keir Starmer is out! Congratulations to the british people and the prediction market traders that saw this trade before end of June 26.