Full disclosure — my friend Sergio Gonzalez is an Uruguay super fan. SUPER FAN.
And so Sunday night’s Uruguay-Cape Verde match had me completely torn. On one hand, my friend’s favorite team was struggling to defeat (or even draw, at a certain point) a Cape Verde squad that they were supposed to beat handily. You can see Uruguay below as the white line (as high as 72%); Cape Verde is the blue:
On the other hand, Cape Verde has become The Official Team of The 7 Oracles — the group chat has been texting about the team, the nation’s crazy ethnic makeup, sharing Wikipedia links to the Carnation Revolution and cheap jerseys on DHGate… and more. Our live show last week — with special guest Martino Puccio — unexpectedly centered on the live draw with Spain for the first half hour or so. We even got into how far the team can go, following a live flipping of odds on Cape Verde reaching the Round of 32:
I know. Poor Sergio.
But we must disassociate our heads from our hearts here and bear down on this one important question: How far can Cape Verde go? And then we have to go a step farther — how can we capitalize? We have $17 knockoff jerseys to pay for, dammit!
Cape Verde is now the favorite in their Friday game against Saudi Arabia:
And there is a more than 50% chance they’ll make it to the Round of 32 — and, following the numbers…they’ll get eliminated then:
56% chance still doubles(ish) your money, but — as long-time readers of this newsletter know — that isn’t considered fun here. At least not on days I write. Making it to the Round of 16, though? Kalshi is giving them a 17% chance (*****WHICH WAS 8% AN HOUR BEFORE THIS NEWSLETTER SENT!!****). Morocco made a run in 2022! Croatia did it in 2018! Costa Rica made a run in 2014! Why can’t Cape Verde??
SIDE NOTE: I’d like to take a quick moment to explain to everyone why we use Kalshi and Polymarket almost exclusively here. It is because their search functions are superior AND places like DraftKings and Novig still use betting odds (see below). These are not the easy-to-grasp percentages we enjoy and can understand; they’re still doing the gatekeep-ey + and - numbers:
Granted, we have a tool for that — but it’s still annoying.
BACK TO THE TOPIC!
If you want to ruin the good time and explain the success here, you can always wave away Cape Verde’s draw with Spain as the Blue Sharks having a very long time to plan and map out a strategy specifically to stop Spain in that first game — essentially, since the draw was announced, Cape Verde could have spent every waking moment planning for Spain (it’s the same reason I never bet on Week 1 of the NFL season; there is too much time for preparation and you cannot get a true read on a team that’s known their opponent for months when every other game for the next several months is played and prepped for a week at a time). Plus, Yamal didn’t come into the game until the 71st minute.
The second match, you could also argue that Uruguay gave away the two goals that Cape Verde scored.
Fine. But then there’s Morocco, right? Put your hand back down and stop waving things away. Cape Verde is fun! Round of 16! 8 17% YES! Every tournament needs a Cinderella, and this is ours. If they advance to the Round of 32, that 17% could jump to 30-40, and we can sell if we’re still nervous about it all (the 8% was more attractive, obviously, but 17% still works for these purposes).
And you know what? Just to have Sergio’s back:
I’d like to take a quick victory lap because of its absurd nature… we won on the Sarah Jessica Parker Northwestern Commencement market for “president.” She was obviously going to address the University president and it may have just been one of those little loopholes (for lack of a better word) that we stumbled upon.
Also, when we wrote about what she might say, we scanned her previous speech at Harvard Law. And apparently she hewed very closely to that one. this is incredible, actually:
But every single headline is a data point, people! We just need to determine whether or not this is a trend or if it’s a cautionary tale for the next speaker — “don’t make the same mistake as SJP, or they’ll figure you out.”
We promised “sex” in the subject line, so here you go: every once in a while I will type random words into the search bar and see what pops up. Last week, among other less salacious topics (toys, McDonald’s, cards, etc), I threw in “sex.” There’s a decent amount of we’re-not-touching-this-ever Epstein Files-related stuff… and then People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2026 market, which currently has $33,600 wagered on it, with Bad Bunny and Michael B. Jordan in the lead:
This will be one of those instances where we’ll eventually see a hard spike when inside info at People leaks into the markets later this year. But right now, it’s a fun exercise in running a bunch of data for the past winners, what they did toward the end of the year that would put them in the public eye, and how much momentum like that matters, etc. I’ve gone through too many lists and stories about past winners and I have SOME theories… but it’s all incomplete. And there is a huge human element to it all that gets me to places like this: while my instinct is to think “Michael B. Jordan just won in 2020, there’s no way he wins twice in six years,” I also feel like they need a headline, and “Michael B. Jordan is the first man to be named Sexiest Man Alive Twice in Six Years!” could garner some attention.
Mamdani is another one I think could be in play at 9% but — did you know — a politician has never won this honor? John F. Kennedy Jr. won in 1988, but he was more of a public figure than a politician. Again, that could be a headline — or it could backfire spectacularly into Republicans boycotting People and its various parent organizations.
This whole thing has sent me down a billion rabbit holes, too. Did you know in 1994 there was no honor bestowed, but years later the editor said it WOULD have gone to Keanu Reeves? And Ryan Gosling has allegedly turned the honor down?
All of this leads me to one place — I need to do more research. Early returns are 9% Mamdani or just leave it alone for now because it feels like the rhythm could be on an older actor like Tom Hanks — and there’s no way to buy him right now. But let’s see if we can test fate:
Have a great week, everyone! May your World Cup markets all turn out fruitful!