A bettor who risked $1 million on Spain beating Cape Verde in a World Cup match in Atlanta on Thursday night lost the entire amount after the teams finished level. The wager was placed on Polymarket and carried implied winning odds of 92%. By contrast, another user who bet $400,000 that Spain would not win, at slim 9% odds, collected $4.7 million.
Cape Verde goalkeeper Josimar “Vozinha” Dias, who stood out in the draw against Spain, said he was stunned to learn during a postgame interview that he had gained hundreds of thousands of followers. By Friday morning, the 40-year-old had reached 6 million Instagram followers, up from just 50,000 before the match.
“When I saw that, I was speechless,” Dias said after the game. “I worked all my life to live this moment.” He added that “generations of people dreamed of something like this and failed to achieve it,” and said the team deserved to be at the World Cup because “we fought with all our strength to get here.”
Dias also said he cried after the match. He said he had grown up with his grandparents, who are no longer alive to see this achievement, and that his mother could not attend because of a visa problem and because the family could not raise the money to complete the process in time. “I would have loved for her to be here with me,” he said, adding that he was happy for all the people of Cape Verde.
