Depending on which bookmaker you used, punters could access a best price of 1/10 on Spain to beat Cape Verde at the World Cup on Monday.
On the exchange, the price had been snipped to an even more prohibitive 1.08.
So the European giants were set to thrash the World Cup debutants, right?
That was the plan, but Spain – ranked 65 places above Cape Verde in the FIFA world rankings – came rather unstuck in Atlanta.
Despite having 74% possession and raining in 27 shots on the Cape Verde goal – as well as having 51 touches of the ball in their penalty area, Spain could not find a way to score.
And so they became the shortest odds ‘losers’ of the World Cup so far. Good news for some punters, but bad news for many, many more…
Bore Draw Bonanza
Let’s start with the positive.
First to America and Polymarket, the prediction market that is regulated as a financial derivatives exchange, rather than a sportsbook.
The upshot? For better or worse, punters can basically bet whatever amount they want without limit or restriction.
Hence how one Polymarket customer was able to win a staggering £3.5 million on the contest, effectively laying Spain with a liability of around £320,000.
It would have been a nervy watch for them, that’s for sure, but a stout defensive display from the islanders – and a Man of the Match performance from goalkeeper Vozinha – saw the selection home.
WORLD CUP HISTORY MADE 🇨🇻
Cape Verde keep out European champions Spain to earn a 0-0 draw! pic.twitter.com/9l67EJTzYh
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) June 15, 2026
As for other punters, the result was rather less pleasing.
One Polymarket customer slapped a steady $1 million – around £750,000 – on Spain to win. That’s a reminder why responsible gambling tools, such as bet limits, are so important in the UK market.
Mind you, the picture was gloomy on these shores too, with Betfair confirming that an accumulative £13 million was lost by their exchange customers in backing the Spaniards.
Although a 1/10 shot losing is far from the shortest odds disaster for the punting community, it’s still a reminder that favourites can – and often do – fail to deliver on expectations.
More Pain for Spain
If the Spanish players were left feeling rather sheepish in the dressing room afterwards, they could perhaps spare a thought for their compatriot, Rafa Nadal.
He is, by our reckoning, the shortest odds loser in modern betting history.
The Spaniard tasted the unlikeliest of first round defeats at Wimbledon in 2013. Nadal had never lost in his opening match of a Grand Slam event, and heading into his meeting with the little-known Belgian, Steve Darcis, he was on a 22-match winning streak.
Hence why the bookmakers were barely entertaining the notion of a Darcis victory, with Nadal priced as short as 1/500 in some quarters.
What unfolded beggared belief…
Darcis, the world number 135, stuck around in the first set and was able to take Nadal to a tiebreak. But he wasn’t supposed to win it, given the form and pedigree of the players… 7-4 to the Belgian.
A quiet hum descended on Court One, but most expected the former Wimbledon champion to turn it around in a best-of-five set match.
Darcis continued to hold his serve and be a nuisance to Nadal when returning, to the point that the second set also went to a tiebreak.
An epic unfolded, but once again it was the Belgian who prevailed by a margin of 10-8… the underdog, a 250/1 chance with many bookmakers, was now 2-0 up in a race to three.
But he couldn’t see it through, could he?
He could. Darcis maintained his composure against a shell-shocked Nadal, capturing the third set 6-4 to complete the most remarkable straight sets victory – to our knowledge, this was the shortest odds defeat in betting history; certainly in the contemporary era, at least.
Readers with decent memories will remember the boxing career of Mike Tyson; the fearsome ‘Baddest Man on the Planet’.
He was a 1/40 dead cert to defeat Buster Douglas, a journeyman heavyweight who had already lost four times prior to climbing inside the ropes with Iron Mike.
But every fighter has a puncher’s chance, as they say, and it was in the tenth round at the Tokyo Dome that Douglas found his: a savage uppercut that knocked Tyson silly.
The challenger followed up with a flurry of punches that knocked Tyson to the canvas, and the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world was unable to answer the referee’s ten count.
Douglas achieved something extraordinary, unthinkable even. Punters that had backed the ‘dead cert’ Tyson couldn’t bear to think about it, that’s for sure…