v2 (experimental) methodology · report date 2026-06-17 · suggested book $1,000 · horizon 45 days
Mode: theme-match. Kalshi's trading_events.category has no "World Cup" value
(the closest is the catch-all Sports bucket, 21,978 events). So I treated
World Cup as a theme and selected markets by keyword across all categories,
searching trading_events.title, trading_markets.title and
trading_markets.rules for: world cup fifa
plus the Kalshi series prefixes KXWC* KXFIFAW*
KXTRUMPWORLDCUP KXSOCCERPLAY*. That returned ~90 series
and several thousand markets — overwhelmingly per-match micro-props (goals, corners, spreads, "first
to score") that fail the liquidity/spread screen.
Screen. From that universe I kept only durable, researchable outcome markets closing inside the horizon, then cut anything with 24h volume < 1,500, a bid/ask spread > 5¢, "what will X say"/mention noise, or a price already pinned ≥95¢ / ≤5¢. Live top-of-book, depth and 24h volume came from the Kalshi public API; 14-day price history from the 5-minute snapshot mirror; standings, FIFA rankings and Trump's attendance plans from primary press (sourced in §6).
Context that shapes everything below: the tournament is mid-group-stage on report day — most teams have played just one match — so "price lags a known result" edges barely exist yet. The format is unusually forgiving: 32 of 48 teams advance (12 group winners + 12 runners-up + 8 best third-place teams). The defensible edges this week are therefore structural / historical and compounding-probability mispricings, not settled outcomes.
Already-published picks excluded. KXTRUMPATTEND (Trump attends the Final) is already a
live pick in users' feeds and is excluded from new picks here; the related Trump match-count ladder is logged
in §5.
| Ticker | Market | YES bid/ask | 24h vol | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KXWCFIFATOP10-26KO-Y | Every FIFA top-10 team reaches knockouts | 69 / 73 | 796* | PICK — BUY NO |
| KXWCNOEURSA-26-Y | Non-Europe/SA team wins the World Cup | 10 / 11 | 3,235 | PICK — BUY NO |
| KXWCGROUPQUAL-26H-URU | Uruguay qualifies from Group H | 78 / 80 | 17,599 | PICK — BUY YES |
| KXWCFIFATOP10-26SF-Y | A non-top-10 team reaches the semifinals | 65 / 68 | 3,262 | PICK — BUY YES |
| KXWCFIFATOP10-26WIN-Y | Winner is a non-top-10 team | 15 / 16 | 862 | PASS — fair |
| KXTRUMPWORLDCUP-26-DJT-1 | Trump attends ≥1 match | 92 / 93 | 4,554 | PASS — thin edge |
| KXTRUMPWORLDCUP-26-DJT-2 | Trump attends ≥2 matches | 41 / 45 | 1,380 | PASS — unfillable |
| KXTRUMPWORLDCUP-26-DJT-3 | Trump attends ≥3 matches | 14 / 16 | 1,200 | PASS — fair |
| KXWCGROUPQUAL-26F-NED | Netherlands qualifies from Group F | 89 / 90 | 4,344 | PASS — efficient |
| KXWCGROUPQUAL-26E-ECU | Ecuador qualifies from Group E | 75 / 76 | 19,498 | PASS — fair |
| KXWCGSUNDEFEATED-26-ARG | Argentina win all 3 group games | 52 / 58 | 3,046 | PASS — spread >5¢ |
| KXWCSTAGE-26HOST-R16 | Furthest host run = exactly R16 | 37 / 38 | 1,586 | PASS — path-dep. |
| KXWCATTENDSWIFT-26JUL20-TAY | Taylor Swift attends a match | 50 / 51 | 654 | PASS — coin flip |
| KXWCSTAGE-26EUR-FW/FL | European confederation furthest-stage set | wide | <150 | PASS — illiquid |
*KO-Y 24h volume has tapered post-Matchday-1, but its NO side shows ~4,989 contracts of depth at/under my 33¢ limit (see pick 2) — book depth, not the trailing volume print, is the binding constraint for a $1,000 book.
Ordered highest-conviction first. Conviction reflects how defensible the edge is (source quality + how unambiguous the resolution rule is + orderbook depth), not the raw EV.
"Will the winner of the 2026 Men's FIFA World Cup be from any continent other than Europe or South America?" — I take NO (a UEFA or CONMEBOL team wins). Cluster: champion-confederation
Mispricing thesis. In 21 men's World Cups the trophy has been won only by European nations (12 times) or South American nations (9). No CONCACAF, AFC or CAF side has ever won. The market is paying 11¢ for the outcome that has never once happened, so NO at ~90¢ is a historically-grounded near-certainty.
Evidence.
"Will every country ranked in the FIFA top 10 (at issuance) reach the knockout stage?" — I take NO (at least one top-10 team fails to advance). Cluster: fifa-top10-upsets
Mispricing thesis. The top-10 at issuance (FIFA, April 2026) are France, Spain, Argentina, England, Portugal, Brazil, Netherlands, Morocco, Belgium, Germany. The market prices ~70% that all ten clear the group stage. But "all ten" is a product of ten near-independent survival odds. Even at a generous 93% per-team advance rate, P(all ten) ≈ 0.93¹⁰ ≈ 48%. Casual bettors anchor on each team's high individual odds and under-weight the compounding — the classic "at least one of many" trap. NO at ~31¢ therefore looks ~14–24¢ cheap.
Evidence.
"Will Uruguay qualify from World Cup Group H?" — I take YES. Cluster: group-h-advance
Mispricing thesis. Uruguay fell from ~88¢ to ~77¢ in the 48 hours after a Matchday-1 draw with Saudi Arabia. In a format that advances 32 of 48 teams, a single dropped point should not cut a top-15 nation's qualification probability by ten points. This reads as an overreaction to fade.
Evidence.
"Will any non-top-10 team reach the semifinals?" — I take YES. Cluster: fifa-top10-upsets
Mispricing thesis. There are four semifinal slots, a 48-team single-elimination bracket from the round of 32, and a deep bench of dangerous non-top-10 sides (Croatia, Uruguay, Colombia, USA, Switzerland, Japan, Ecuador). For all four semifinalists to come from the top-10 list, the seeding has to hold cleanly across five knockout rounds — rare. Recent World Cups almost always produce a non-elite semifinalist (Morocco 2022, Croatia 2018 finalist).
Sized for a $1,000 book holding ~10% ($103) cash reserve for opportunistic adds. Limit prices are what I'd actually pay; all four sit inside the available depth at those limits except pick 4, which is deliberately sized down to its thin book.
| # | Ticker | Side | Limit | Contracts | Cost | My prob | Edge ¢ | EV % | Max payout | Cluster |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | KXWCNOEURSA-26-Y | NO | 90 | 333 | $299.70 | 95% | +5 | +6% | $333 | champion-confederation |
| 2 | KXWCFIFATOP10-26KO-Y | NO | 33 | 750 | $247.50 | 55% | +12 | +36% | $750 | fifa-top10-upsets |
| 3 | KXWCGROUPQUAL-26H-URU | YES | 80 | 325 | $260.00 | 85% | +5 | +6% | $325 | group-h-advance |
| 4 | KXWCFIFATOP10-26SF-Y | YES | 70 | 128 | $89.60 | 77% | +7 | +10% | $128 | fifa-top10-upsets |
| Total deployed | $896.80 | ~+15% | $1,536 | |||||||
Deployed $896.80 (89.7%) · cash reserve $103.20 (10.3%) · blended expected value ≈ +$132 (≈ +14.7%) · max payout if all four win $1,536. Expected payout (Σ prob × contracts) ≈ $1,029.
| Cluster | Picks | Cost | % of capital | Cap | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| fifa-top10-upsets | KO-Y NO + SF-Y YES | $337.10 | 33.7% | 35% | ✓ under cap |
| champion-confederation | NOEURSA NO | $299.70 | 30.0% | 35% | ✓ under cap |
| group-h-advance | Uruguay YES | $260.00 | 26.0% | 35% | ✓ under cap |
| cash reserve | — | $103.20 | 10.3% | — | held back |
Picks 2 and 4 share the fifa-top10-upsets cluster: both express the single worldview that the FIFA top-10 ranking under-predicts chaos in a 48-team field. They are not perfectly correlated (early flop vs. late overperformance can both happen or neither), but I cap them jointly so that one "the seeds held perfectly" tournament can't sink both legs unchecked.
In v2 these are machine-logged to picks.json and shadow-tracked to settlement, so
we can test whether the selection screen actually adds skill. If the rejects perform as well as the picks, the
screen adds nothing — a finding worth knowing either way.
| Ticker | Would-be side | Price | My prob | Why rejected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| KXWCFIFATOP10-26WIN-Y | YES | 16 | 15% | Fairly priced; 24h volume under the 1,500 screen. |
| KXTRUMPWORLDCUP-26-DJT-2 | YES | 46 | 52% | Coin-flip thesis and zero depth at the 45¢ target (best NO bid 54 ⇒ can't buy YES under 46¢); edge below slippage. |
| KXTRUMPWORLDCUP-26-DJT-1 | YES | 93 | 95% | He's confirmed to plan the Final, but ~2¢ edge at 93¢ is below the spread cost. |
| KXTRUMPWORLDCUP-26-DJT-3 | YES | 16 | 15% | Fairly priced; he skipped the USA opener, so three appearances is a real long shot. |
| KXWCGROUPQUAL-26E-ECU | YES | 76 | 74% | Fair after MD1; Germany & Ivory Coast both won, leaving Ecuador third on tie-breakers. |
| KXWCGROUPQUAL-26F-NED | YES | 90 | 92% | My ~92% sits inside the 89/90 quote; ~2¢ edge below slippage. |
| KXWCGSUNDEFEATED-26-ARG | YES | 58 | 50% | 6¢ spread (52/58) fails the 5¢ screen; "win all three" is a coin flip even for Argentina. |
| KXWCSTAGE-26HOST-R16 | YES | 38 | 38% | Exact-bucket outcome (reach R16 but no host reaches QF) — too path-dependent to defend. |
| KXWCATTENDSWIFT-26JUL20-TAY | YES | 51 | 50% | True coin flip, no public-information edge, volume under the 1,500 screen. |
Data sources: Kalshi read-only DB mirror (metadata, rules, 5-minute snapshots) and the Kalshi public trade API (live orderbook/depth/OI), grounded against the primary press linked above.
Disclaimer: This is an experimental v2 research artifact, not investment advice. All probabilities are subjective estimates; prediction-market contracts can and do resolve to zero. v2 picks are shadow-tracked and do not count toward the public kalshi-audits performance record. Prices and depth are point-in-time as of 2026-06-17 and will move.