Who wins the 2026 World Series, the Dodgers or the Brewers?
One of these teams has never won a World Series in 57 years of trying.
Major League Baseball puts 30 clubs through 162 games between late March and the end of September. 12 teams reach the playoffs. Those 12 play a three-week knockout tournament that opens with a wild card round on September 29, and the last two standing meet in the World Series, best of seven, starting October 23.
Polymarket carries the whole thing as one market, with $39.5m traded so far. Whoever wins the title settles at a dollar, and the other 29 settle at zero.
What we are doing here is what we did with the CS2 major, with Dota, and with the FIFA World Cup. Buy a basket instead of a team. The reasoning does not change from one sport to the next: a single pick in a 30-club field hands you 29 ways to be wrong, and the pick you like is usually the wrong one. Spreading the money across the front of the board fixes all problems at once. Sure, the overall return comes down, but the chance of collecting anything at all goes up, which is very important.
For this strategy to work, one puts the same size in each contract. We think the most risk-averse option is betting on the top eight clubs.
- The Dodgers at 33 cents
- Brewers at 12
- Yankees at 10
- Rays at 7.2
- Phillies at 6.1
- Braves at 5.9
- Cubs at 5.7
- Red Sox at 5.4
Total: 85.3 cents. No matter which one of these eight wins, the end result is going to be a 17.23% return. To increase the return, one can simply remove the lowest-probability ones from the basket. For example, removing the Braves, Cubs, and Red Sox and betting on the top five increases the overall return from 17.23% to a whopping 46.41%.
This page does not constitute investing advice. Prediction markets and/or gambling may result in loss of funds. You are advised to conduct your own due diligence before taking any action.
