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Live · World Cup 2026

How OddsIQ Works

Two games. One tournament. 112 points up for grabs. Powered by 50,000 daily AI simulations.

01The two games

Play either or both. Both are free. No money changes hands.

🏆 Game 1

Champion Pick

Pick ONE team from all 48 to win the whole World Cup. One lock, one chance — but the biggest points.

Max 32 ptsLocks Jun 11
⚡ Game 2

Knockout Pick'em

Pick winners for all 31 knockout matches across 5 rounds. Later rounds score higher. Climb the leaderboard.

Max 80 ptsStarts Jun 25

02Tournament timeline

Here’s when each game opens, locks, and scores. You’re here today — still time to lock your champion.

Today
You’re here
Jun 11
Champion picks freeze
Jun 27
Knockout bracket reveals
Jul 14
Semi-finals lock
Jul 19
Final · winner crowned

03Game 1 — Champion Pick

Lock the team you think will lift the trophy. Simple.

1
Browse all 48 teams sorted by AI-estimated win probability
2
Pick one and lock it in before June 11
3
Your pick’s probability is frozen at lock time
4
If your team wins the World Cup, earn the 32-point champion bonus
Your locked champion pick
🇪🇸
You’re backing
Spain
13.2% per OddsIQ AI

04Game 2 — Knockout Pick’em

Once the group stage ends, pick winners for each round. Five rounds, locks roll one by one.

1
Wait for the 32-team bracket to reveal on June 25
2
Pick a winner for each match in each round
3
Points double each round — harder picks score more
4
You can change picks until that round locks
Pick winners round by round
🇫🇷France ✓
🇲🇦Morocco
🇪🇸Spain
🇸🇪Sweden
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿England
🇯🇵Japan ✓
🇧🇷Brazil
🇦🇷Argentina

05How scoring works

Harder rounds score higher. Max possible total is 112 points.

Round · Difficulty · Points per correct · Max
R32
Easiest · 16 matches
1 × 16
16 pts
R16
Harder · 8 matches
2 × 8
16 pts
QF
Tight · 4 matches
4 × 4
16 pts
SF
Elite · 2 matches
8 × 2
16 pts
Final
Winner-takes-all
16 × 1
16 pts
🏆 Champion
If your Game 1 pick wins
32 bonus
32 pts
Total
Perfect tournament
—
112 pts

06Beat the AI

The AI plays alongside you — same picks, same deadlines, zero advantage.

You
Your picks, your points
VS
OddsIQ AI
50K simulations

The AI’s picks are posted on the leaderboard alongside human players. If you score higher than the AI, you’ve officially beaten the model. It’s happened more than you’d think.

07What the AI knows · what it doesn’t

We believe in showing our working. Transparency beats opacity.

✓ What the model uses

  • Elo ratings with confederation adjustments
  • Recent form (last 10 international matches, recency-weighted)
  • Dixon-Coles Poisson model for match scores
  • Bracket draw and potential matchups
  • Historical head-to-head patterns

✗ What the model can't see

  • Injuries to key players in the days before a match
  • Weather or altitude (Mexico City vs Miami)
  • Manager changes mid-tournament
  • Referee tendencies or VAR decisions
  • Team morale, media pressure, off-pitch drama

08FAQ

OddsIQ is an AI-powered football forecasting tool — not a bookmaker. We publish probabilities and free prediction games; actual betting, if you choose to do it, happens through licensed bookmakers on their own sites.
No. The prediction games are free and no money changes hands on OddsIQ — just points on a leaderboard. You do need to be 18+ because our analysis is betting-adjacent. If you act on our probabilities by placing bets elsewhere, that is gambling and your responsibility.
Yes — until the round locks. For Game 1 (Champion Pick), you can change your champion any time before June 11. For Game 2 (Knockout Pick'em), you can edit each round's picks until that round's first match kicks off. After lock, picks freeze.
You lose the chance at the 32-point champion bonus, but you keep any points already earned. You can still play Game 2 (Knockout Pick'em) and climb the leaderboard.
Honest answer: we don’t know yet, and we’re not going to guess. We’re running a 60-day track-record period where our predictions are logged publicly. After that period completes (around September 2026), the calibration page will show verified accuracy data — how often our 60% predictions actually came in 60% of the time, bucket by bucket. Any tipster site quoting win rates without that track record is asking you to trust a number they made up. We’d rather show you the data when it’s real.
Daily. After each match during the tournament, the model re-runs 50,000 simulations and all team probabilities shift. Your "locked at" probability stays frozen at the moment you made the pick.
We process data in accordance with UK GDPR. Passwords are bcrypt hashed, we don’t sell your data, and we don’t run cross-site tracking cookies. See the full privacy policy for specifics.
Yes, but anonymous. Other players see you as "player-a3f4c2" or similar. Your real username is never shown on public leaderboards.
Final scoring runs within an hour of the final whistle. Champion bonuses apply, the leaderboard freezes, top predictors get a shout-out. Your prediction history is retained anonymously so it can feed ongoing model calibration. You can delete your account at any time.
Sharp Money flags matches where the professional money is landing differently from the public. Value Bet flags bookmaker odds that look mispriced against our model probability. Trap Alert flags markets where price movement suggests the crowd is being encouraged into a losing position. Note: Trap Alerts are currently being calibrated and may appear on more matches than they should during our pre-launch tuning phase. The full derivation is on the methodology page.

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