Spain World Cup Draw Wipes Out Nearly $1M Position on Polymarket

Spain's scoreless World Cup draw with Cape Verde produced one of the tournament's sharpest prediction market reversals. 

A Polymarket user lost nearly $1 million after backing Spain to beat Cape Verde in Monday's Group H match. Spain entered the game as the world's No. 3 team and carried a 92% chance of winning. The position would have returned up towards $86,000 in profit if Spain had taken all three points. 

Instead, Cape Verde held Spain to a 0-0 draw. The result cost Spain two points in the group standings and wiped out the bettor's position. Cape Verde, ranked then at No. 67, is playing in its first World Cup and entered the match as a heavy underdog. 

Goalkeeper Vozinha became the central figure in the upset. The 40-year-old made seven official saves and kept Spain off the scoreboard. His performance also drew new public attention, with his Instagram following rising above 4 million after the match. 

The same result created a large win for another Polymarket trader. A user identified as "fishalive" placed $427,000 on Spain not winning the match. That position paid out more than $4.7 million after the draw. 

Cape Verde's run now continues against Uruguay on June 21. For a country of about 525,000 people, the draw gave its debut World Cup campaign a result far beyond the market's pregame pricing. 

Polymarket volume slides as sports markets keep growing 

That Spain-Cape Verde trade came during a period when prediction market apps are seeing major activity in major sports, even as Polymarket's international platform has lost monthly volume. 

Polymarket's international platform processed just under $7.1 billion in May, according to figures from data analyst firm Dune Analytics. That was down from just over $9 billion in April and marked the platform's second straight monthly decline. March remained the recent peak, when Polymarket handled $10.5 billion in volume. 

The user base also narrowed during that stretch. Monthly users fell from more than 780,000 in March to fewer than 650,000 in May. That decline came after a sharp expansion in prior months, when prediction markets gained wider attention across politics, sports, and financial events. 

The May decline did not mean the broader sector was cooling evenly. CNBC reported the drop against a backdrop of rising industry activity, with prediction markets continuing to attract large trades and deeper attention from sports bettors. 

Polymarket's recent numbers show a more uneven picture. The brand still handled billions of dollars in monthly trades, but its international platform slipped from its March high. At the same time, major sports events kept producing large individual positions, including the Spain-Cape Verde World Cup market.