Curse of the Golden Boot: World Cup Betting Pitfalls

SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE BETTING ON THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE SPORTING CALENDAR

By Kevin Pullein

One major bookmaker has a World Cup market called top goalscorer with rules saying it will be settled as the Golden Boot. This seems to me to be asking for trouble. It might not come, but it could.

Many bettors understand top goalscorer and the Golden Boot to mean different things. Often the difference does not matter, but sometimes it does. It matters when there are joint top scorers.

This happened at only three of the previous 22 World Cups: in 2010 when there was a four-way tie, in 1994 when there was a two-way tie and in 1962 when there was a six-way tie.

It may or may not happen at the 23^rd World Cup – in the United States, Canada and Mexico between 11^th June and 19^th July 2026. But if it does, there could be bettors who feel they have been misled. Why run the risk of antagonizing customers unnecessarily?

A Golden Boot market has only one winner, whose backers are paid in full. Most top goalscorer markets can have multiple winners, whose backers are all paid but in part. Here we have a market whose name suggests it is one thing but with rules that insist it is another. And the rules are not in the same place as the market.

Golden Boot and Top Goalscorer: The Differences

The Golden Boot is awarded by competition organisers Fifa. Should more than one player reach the highest number of goals, only one will receive the Golden Boot. The tiebreakers are: most assists (as determined by the Fifa Technical Study Group, not, for example, Opta); then fewest minutes played. Or at least, they are as I write. It is not unknown for criteria to change mid-tournament.

Most top goalscorer markets are subject to dead-heat deductions when two or more players share the highest total. The greater the number of players involved in the tie the greater the size of the deductions.

Other leading bookmakers seem to have taken the simple steps necessary to minimise the danger of avoidable misunderstandings. Either they have a market called top goalscorer with rules saying it will be settled on the top goalscorer, or they have a market called Golden Boot with rules saying it will be settled on the Golden Boot. There are almost equal numbers of both.

If you have a preference for one over the other, you should carefully pick the bookmaker with whom you place your bet. If a market is called top goalscorer and the rules say it will be settled on the top goalscorer, you will not have a reasonable argument to be paid on the Golden Boot. And if a market is called Golden Boot and the rules say it will be settled on the Golden Boot, you will not have a reasonable argument to be paid on the top goalscorer.

Golden Boot and Tournament Winner ‘Special’ Doubles

If you put a player to be top scorer or win the Golden Boot in a double with a team to lift the trophy, you will get a special price. It will be lower than the multiplied odds for singles on the two selections – even if you place the bet in a shop and write those odds on the slip.

Let me give some examples. Among the best decimal odds for singles are 7.0 for Kylian Mbappe and 6.0 for France, 8.0 for Harry Kane and 7.0 for England, 21.0 for Lamine Yamal and 5.5 for Spain. Non-special doubles from singles at those odds would pay 42.0, 56.0 and 115.5. (7.0 x 6.0 = 42.0, 8.0 x 7.0 = 56.0 and 21.0 x 5.5 = 115.5). The best special odds are 17.0, 21.0 and 34.0. All much smaller.

Bookmakers, of course, can offer whatever odds they like. Bettors, in turn, must choose whether to take them or leave them.

Many bookmakers no longer say why they offer diminished odds for special doubles. Originally the explanation was that the events were related: success for one part of the bet would increase the chance of success for the other. The more goals a player scores, the argument went, the more likely their team are to win. It sounds logical, but not everything that sounds logical is right. Is this?

At previous World Cups, the winners were four times as likely as other teams to contain a player who was either sole or joint top scorer. It would be hard to argue that the leading marksman playing for whoever lifts the trophy is not a related contingency.

Positive and Negative Relations in Betting Multiples

Other things follow, though. If a bet on the top scorer playing for the winners is positively related, a bet on the top scorer playing for non-winners must be negatively related. If the first double should offer less than the normal accumulative odds, the second should offer more.

Do bookmakers raise the odds for doubles such as Mbappe/England or Kane/France? As I said, bookmakers are allowed to offer whatever odds they want, just as bettors are free to accept them or reject them. It is still a question worth asking, though.

One further point before moving on. Yamal missed the end of the club season through injury but is in the Spain squad for the World Cup. He can be replaced up to 24 hours before Spain’s first match, but otherwise bets involving him will stand – whether he plays or not.

When Extra Time Counts – and When it Doesn’t

Markets for the Golden Boot or top scorer exclude penalties converted in a shootout but do include goals in extra time. Other markets will exclude everything that happens in extra time or a shootout unless there is a specific acknowledgement that either or both are included.

This is because extra time and a shootout are not part of a match. They are tiebreakers used when neither team has won a match but one team must progress to the next round or be presented with the trophy. There will be 32 ties in the United States, Canada or Mexico that could go to extra time or a shootout – all those in the expanded knockout phase.

The first shootout at a World Cup was in a 1982 semi-final that is usually remembered for something else: a challenge by the West German keeper Toni Schumacher that horribly injured the French defender Patrick Battiston. Across the 11 World Cups from 1982 to 2022, 34 per cent of all knockout ties went to extra time and 21 per cent to a shootout.

The proportions may be lower in 2026. This is because the chances of extra time and a shootout go down as the differences in ability between teams widen, and they are likely to widen, at least at the start, in a knockout bracket that has doubled in size from 16 to 32 teams.

Whatever happens, there will be many markets with at least the potential to disappoint people if for some reason they do not realise that their bets will end with the last whistle of the second half. And this is for bets placed with all bookmakers, not just one.