Is it a conspiracy or luck?

Written by: Eric, Foresight News

The 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico is full of topics. From CCTV's refusal of a high-priced broadcasting rights contract, to the farewell performances of veterans, to the unpredictable group matches, there has been no shortage of discussions from before the tournament started to today. Among these, predicting the match results is one of the unavoidable core topics, and betting markets amplify the volume of discourse further.

This year’s World Cup group stage has seen several surprises, leading to heavy losses for some investors hoping to achieve "stable returns" by betting on strong teams, but at the same time, many others have reaped substantial rewards by successfully betting on upset outcomes.

Interestingly, many of the addresses that reported large profits were registered just in June and placed significant bets on results that most people did not favor in only a few matches. This unusual behavior seems to hint at a whiff of "conspiracy"...

During the group stage, Cape Verde, an African island nation with a population of only 540,000 participating in its first World Cup, drew 0:0 with Spain. This match, which many Polymarket players jokingly referred to as "fixed-rate wealth management" before it took place, led to significant losses for many, but at the same time, it allowed participants willing to bet against the trend on weaker teams to earn substantial rewards.

An account on Polymarket named "fishalive" placed nearly $430,000 on the "Will Spain win on June 15, 2026?" market by betting no, while also placing nearly $3.8 million on Spain to win by less than 2.5 goals. Despite the substantial gap in perceived strength, betting over $4 million on this upset outcome netted this "lone warrior" over $4.8 million in profit.

This account named "fishalive" was registered in June, and after betting on just this one match, it made no further moves. According to Polygonscan information, this address was created 33 days ago, and the inflow and outflow of funds concentrated around the match day between Spain and Cape Verde. Rapidly transferring millions of dollars, betting profits, and then withdrawing funds gives off the sense of "an account opened specifically for this match."

Coincidentally, three other accounts on Polymarket named "mintblade," "GRIMDRIP," and "endlessFate" also exhibit similar operational methods as "fishalive": betting on upset results, placing large bets, and having a perfect record in World Cup-related prediction markets. Additionally, according to my research, besides the account named "endlessFate," which was opened in April this year, the other two accounts were newly created in June.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, these three addresses collectively bet on 13 World Cup-related prediction markets and achieved a full success rate, with total profits exceeding $24 million. Furthermore, the profits from these three accounts were ultimately transferred to a Binance deposit address starting with 0xB08B, indicating a high likelihood that these three addresses belong to the same individual.

This individual successfully predicted the draws between Uruguay and Saudi Arabia, Czech Republic and South Africa, along with several other results that cannot be considered upsets. It is not surprising to bet on upsets based on luck, and occasional consistent success isn't unusual either, but achieving 13 consecutive wins with single bets in the hundreds of thousands of dollars is indeed rare.

Given the similarities in account name structure and operational methods between "fishalive" and the three accounts mentioned, I attempted to find connections between these addresses, but ultimately traced "fishalive" only to Ethereum addresses like "0x644e5Abe1654525FA1DC984171Bd0F7A6e59353d," and I found no connection between these addresses and the Binance deposit address starting with 0xB08B.

Currently, there is no evidence or news report to confirm that these addresses had prior knowledge of the match results; it can only be said that if there is no insider information, then someone adopting such aggressive betting methods is either an exceptionally lucky wealthy individual or a "sweeping monk" with peak analytical skills and mindset.

Investments often exceeding hundreds of thousands of dollars, betting only on select matches then quickly transferring the profits to exchanges, a terrifying winning streak, and precise predictions of upset outcomes make it hard not to entertain thoughts of "there being a conspiracy." One additional detail is that all the surprising results mentioned above were directly purchased shortly after the markets opened, rather than betting during the matches themselves.

Unfortunately, since these accounts transferred their funds to exchanges after achieving their goals and ceased further operations, it might be difficult to track them in the future. As the World Cup progresses, it may also be hard to see any "upsets," and if these accounts are suddenly activated one day, they could potentially serve as a betting reference for prediction market players.