Will artificial intelligence disrupt and revolutionize the betting industry moving forward?
Some companies are looking to answer that question ahead of the 2026 World Cup, by compiling data and feeding it through AI agents.
‘Are soccer fans better off with AI rather than simply going with the odds?’
One such company fed Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.6 over 1,200 data points to predict every match in the World Cup and determine the outcome.
The analysis from Action Network delivered 57 pages and more than 19,000 words on who would win which match, mapping out an entire bracket for soccer fans.
AI predictions
Using “international form, World Cup history, squad market value” and “coach profiles,” the in-depth look from Claude had France as the winner over Argentina in the final.
World Soccer Talk took a similar approach with Google Gemini and included analysis of style of play, performance under certain climates, squad depth, and manager performance. The AI spit out Spain as the most likely winner of the tournament. However, asking Gemini for a simple prediction straight up would have garnered the same outcome, with Spain winning 2-1 over France.
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FRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images
Microsoft CoPilot figured the consistency, “elite depth,” and pipeline of talent were reasons enough to predict France as the likely winner, according to AS.
An “unusually strong blend of factors” such as prime-age talent and an “established possession-based system” were among the factors ChatGPT gave to place Spain as the likely winner for 2026, in a 2-1 win over France.
The only AI to go slightly off-the-board was Grok, which cited “unmatched” squad depth coupled with elite attackers as the reason why Brazil will likely win the tournament, 2-1 over France.
AI versus the house
By using either complex analyses or even simply posing the question to chatbots, are soccer fans better off with AI rather than simply going with the odds?
The short answer is no.
Gamblers will steal lean with their intuition and real-life knowledge of the teams, and while these reports could assist in completing a bracket, casual or for-fun bettors are just as well off to go with the favorites.
Most odds-setters have listed Spain and France as neck-and-neck favorites to win, typically around +450.
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Grok going with Brazil to win it all — which is listed as the fourth or fifth favorite behind England and sometimes Argentina — is the only outlier of the popular chatbots that did not go with a favorite.
What this likely means is that the information that is publicly available and provided to the chatbots is essentially the same; this is not the same as an NFL team using their own internal scouting data to find their next draft pick — this is chatbots farming the same data used by odds-makers and coming to similar conclusions.
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Ai models, Artificial intelligence, Chatbots, Gambling, World cup, Tech