World Cup Winner Odds, the Moneyline Format

You'll have noticed that the World Cup winner odds are presented as positive or negative whole numbers. This is known as the moneyline format, or more commonly as American odds. What do these numbers represent, exactly? We'll explain with this example:

Brazil (-400)

United States (+1400)

The first thing you need to remember is that the team with the negative number is the stronger contender and the higher the number, the more likely it is they will win. In this case, Brazil is favored to win the World Cup. But the USA price is (+1400), making them severe underdogs.

With this format, a $400 bet on Brazil would give you a $100 reward if they go on to win, while a $100 bet on the USA would give you a $1400 reward if the Stars and Stripes pull off a tournament shock.

How to Pick Your Winner

These are methods and data that come in handy when you're making a decision with your World Cup winner odds. Let's look at some of them.

Analyze form three months before the tournament

National teams don't play regularly together, and international fixtures are always squeezed into the club calendar, usually months apart. So how a team plays 12 months before the World Cup may not be a good representation of how their form will be at the main tournament. In fact, they may not even have all the same players on the roster. So, shorten the horizon for your analysis and look at the results much closer to the World Cup, that's when teams have usually finalized their squads.

World Cup winner odds: avoid the favorites

You must keep in mind that odds are merely a reflection of popular sentiment. This doesn't necessarily mean that you must be take the opposite view when picking your team, of course. The favorites are favorites for a reason.

But soccer has so many nuances and is dependent on so many physical, mental and emotional factors that since the turn of the millennium, only once has a pre-tournament favorite gone on and actually won the tournament. This was Brazil in 2002.

Avoid the reigning champions

In the history of the tournament, only on two occasions have the winners of a World Cup gone on to win the next edition. Italy did it in 1934 at home before defending the title in 1938 in France, while Brazil won in 1958 and 1962. No team has managed it since, and that's usually because in the four-year period between World Cups, teams have to either settle in with a new generation of players or are seeing off an old generation.

Share article on: