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How to bet on the 2022 World Cup: Best bets, odds, picks, more

Kylian Mbappe
PSG’s Kylian Mbappe looks on during warm up before the French League One soccer match between FC Lorient and Paris Saint-Germain at the Moustoir stadium in Lorient, western France, Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)

The 2022 World Cup is just around the corner as the world’s biggest sporting event is set to kick off in Qatar on Sunday, November 20th. 

In the lead-up to the event, we’ve been walking you through our previews of all the different groups, so make sure you check those out to get a better sense of who the teams are and who was given a draw that could benefit them in the tournament. Once you’ve done that, then we can talk about who you should be betting on. 

There are numerous ways to bet on the 2022 World Cup from the outright winner to which teams will make the semi-final, to who will win their groups or which player will score the most goals. In this article, I’ll walk you through all the different ways you can bet and then give you some of our favorite bets for each type. All odds will be courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook. 

 

Individual Game Bets

The first way you can bet on the 2022 World Cup is the way you can bet on any match. In the Group Stage of the tournament, you can bet on either team to win the match (betting on the moneyline) or you can bet on a draw. Since this is the round-robin portion of the tournament, draws are allowed until the Group Stage is over. 

We’ll cover this in more depth during the tournament, so you should check back in because we will have daily schedules and betting guides throughout the entire 2022 World Cup. 

 

Outright Winner

Another popular bet is to bet on who will come away as World Cup champions. You can find this under the “Team Futures” section. Heading into the tournament, the odds look like this:

2022 World Cup odds

There are other teams in the tournament who aren’t pictured above, but I cut it off here because I wanted to show how far down the United State was. 

Brazil (+400) is the favorite and rightfully so. Their attack is led by stars like Neymar, Vinicius Junior, and Gabriel Jesus. Plus, they have two world-class goalkeepers in Alisson and Ederson, and talented defenders like Thiago Silva and Marquinhos. 

Argentina (+500) is also a solid gamble here. Led by superstar Lionel Messi, Argentina is unbeaten in their last 35 matches, including a victory over Brazil in Copa America last year. 

Spain (+850) should always be in the conversation. They had a great showing at the 2020 Euros, losing to Italy in penalties in the semi-finals, which was a brutal blow. Spain loves to maintain possession for a long time, which often wears teams down in tournaments and allows them to find opportunities for goals despite not having a Messi or Neymar. 

Croatia (+5000) is also getting some love as a long-shot sleeper pick. Back at the 2018 World Cup, they won their group, which included Argentina, and then advanced to the finals, where they lost to France 4-2. They’re 14-1 in their last 15 matches and have a very winnable group, which should give them a good chance to get to the knockouts with a solid draw. 

 

Double Chance Winner

The Double Chance winner is an intriguing option for the 2022 World Cup, where you can bet on two potential winners and if EITHER one of them wins the championship, you hit on the bet. Obviously, the odds for this are lower, but something “chalky” like Brazil-Argentina (+180) or Brazil-Spain (+250) are still plus money, and you could take a chance on Argentina-Spain (+300) or even Argentina-Netherlands (+350). 

 

Finalist

Another easy-to-understand bet is to bet on a team to simply make the Finals. Obviously, here you want to look at the potential breakdown of the knockout rounds and see who could feasibly have a winnable path to the title match. 

2022 world cup finals best bets

You can obviously bet on any of the teams mentioned above to make the final, and I think Spain (+400) remains a good plus-odds bet. However, two other options that are trending are Portugal (+550) and Denmark (+1200)

Denmark should easily advance out of Group D and could even win it since France is struggling a bit of late. If they do, they would likely avoid Argentina in the knockout round and then could see England in the quarterfinals, which could make for a solid path to at least the semis at those long odds. 

 

Semi-Finalist

Betting on a team to make the semi-finals is a similar strategy to the finals in terms of looking at the knockout draw and seeing how things could break.

Here, the same teams apply and the fact that we’ve mentioned Croatia (+600) and Denmark (+500) above makes them still intriguing here at these odds. 

Quarter-Finalist

Lastly, in terms of the knockout round, you can bet on a team making the quarter-finals, which means they will need to win one game in the knockout stage. If you were to predict how the group stages would go, you can see what the first round will be in the knockout rounds and just decide who will win those matches. 

Some intriguing bets here could be Senegal (+400) if they get a matchup with a flawed England team or Denmark (+160) again, which are still plus odds here. 

 

Group Winners

Prior to the knockout rounds, you can also bet on who will win each group. Reading our group previews will be helpful there, so make sure to check those out. Usually, it’s hard to find underdogs to win a group outright, but we’ve already talked about two that are coming up often in this article: Denmark (+225) and Croatia (+200) are both plus-odds bets to win their group.

 

To Qualify From Group

Lastly, for team bets, we can bet on the teams that we think will qualify from the Group Stage, which means which teams will finish in the top two of their group. This is where our first USA (-105) bet comes into play. They are only slight favorites over Wales (+100) who they will meet in their first match of the 2022 World Cup. 

Some other potentially sneaky picks in terms of qualifying are Ecuador (+100) to qualify over Senegal in Group A, Iran (+350) to qualify over Wales and the USA, and Poland (-110) to qualify over Mexico in Group C. You can also get Denmark (-280) to qualify, which feels like a lock bet.  

 

Top Goalscorer

Finally, we can also place a player bet on who will be the top goalscorer of the 2022 World Cup, also known as the Golden Boot. 

Right off the bat, you can see just how high these odds are. That’s because we not only need to be choosing a player who is in the attack and will score a fair amount of goals, but also a player on a team who will make a deep run.

Obviously, more games played gives us more chances for goals; however, the player doesn’t necessarily need to come from the outright winner as the Golden Boot winner has come from the winning nation on just four occasions since the first World Cup in 1930.

We’ve already mentioned Neymar (+1000) and Messi (+1000) above, and you can get the 2018 Golden Boot winner Harry Kane at +700. 

Some other trendy picks are Kylian Mbappe (+800) but if we’re thinking France has been struggling then we might want to look in another direction, especially since Karim Benzema (+1200) is another great goalscorer and is on the same team. 

If the Netherlands makes a deep run then Steven Bergwjin is interesting at (+6500) and another option if you like Brazil but don’t want to go with Neymar could be Gabriel Jesus (+2500). 

Obviously, these are all long-shot bets so only bet what you can afford to lose, which is really just good practice for all gambling. 

For more 2022 World Cup coverage, visit amNY Sports

Does Messi make Argentina a 2022 World Cup Best Bet?
PSG’s Lionel Messi reacts after missing a scoring chance during the French League One soccer match between Paris Saint Germain and Auxerre at Parc des Princes stadium in Paris, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)