Discover different World Cup sweepstake ideas. Find how they work, how to run one, and a few variations so that your sweepstake is best suited to your group!
With the 2026 World Cup fast approaching, there aren’t many better ways to get involved with the tournament than having some fun with friends or coworkers with a sweepstake!
You may, however, be unsure of how to go about organising one. But don’t worry, as in this guide, we’ll give you all the ideas you’ll need to sort one out so that you’re ready to back a World Cup winner before the tournament begins!
Read on to discover how sweepstakes work, how to run one, and some different variations on how you can approach a sweepstake to make it suitable and more fun for you and your group!
How does a World Cup sweepstake work?
Firstly, let’s break down what a sweepstake is so that you have a better understanding ahead of the tournament.
A sweepstake is a game based on major sports events, like the World Cup, where each participant will pay an equal stake into a pot before drawing either a team or teams at random.
After the event ends, the participant with the winning team will take home the pot, with potential for second and third placed teams sometimes taking home a portion too, depending on how you set the game up!
How to run a World Cup sweepstake
If you’ve taken on the responsibility of running a World Cup sweepstake, here’s everything you need to know. Firstly, in order to allow people to be randomly given teams, there are two common methods that people use to achieve this:
Pick teams out of a hat: Write down all 48 teams competing in the World Cup onto slips of paper and put them in a hat. Then, allow each participant to draw teams out of the hat until they’re all gone. You might not have 48 players, but that’s fine as you can allow each participant to draw multiple teams.
Use an online sweepstake generator: This is an easier way of making the process random, as a computer will do most of the work for you! Just type in the names of all 48 teams and let the generator randomly select teams for each player until all the teams are gone.
Sweepstake ideas for the World Cup
Below are some ideas on how you can play your sweepstake, with some helping to improve the experience you have, either by making it fairer, more random, or to accommodate different sizes of groups:
Classic random draw
When using this method, it’s best to have a larger group e.g. 24-48 people, meaning that everyone will end up with one or two teams.
This will just involve everyone picking a team until they’re all gone, and all teams are evenly allocated. This means if you have 12 people, everyone gets four teams, and if there are 16 people, everyone gets three teams.
Four-pot seeded draw
This method emphasises fairness, splitting the teams into four pots of 12, with one pot containing the top ranked teams and each one working its way down to the lowest ranked teams. Each participant will then draw one team from each pot – so if there’s 12 players then participants take one from each pot.
This works as everyone gets one team more likely to become the tournament winner, two more middle-tier sides, and one outsider. By doing this method, it reduces the chance that one participant gets a much stronger or weaker selection of teams than another.
You can also do a variation on this draw and do six pots, splitting the teams up a little more, leading to eight teams per tier, increasing the fairness further.
Auction draft
This method is a more strategic approach to sweepstakes and requires a little more judgement and forward planning than others might do. Essentially, every player gets a fictional budget e.g. £100, and then all 48 teams are auctioned off to the highest bidder. The best teams will cost more, and the lower ranked sides are much cheaper.
If you choose to go with this method, being more careful about what you bid and which teams you bid on is key. Ensuring that you’re spending your money wisely is important to get the best teams/selection of teams to do well at the tournament!
Snake draft by ranking
Firstly, for this method you’ll need to randomise player order. So, if there are 12 people, you would assign them numbers from one to 12. As a part of this way of running a sweepstake, picks are all done in sequence using this numbered list.
The next step is to draft the players. Round one will have person one picking first and person 12 picking last. Round two would then start with person 12 and end with person one. Then round three would go back to starting with person one and ending with person 12. This pattern of going up and down the list continues until all the teams have been picked.
However, to ensure fairness when doing a tiered system, a player must pick a team from tier one, then tier two, then tier three, etc., which reduces pure luck and adds strategy.
Points-based scoring
To keep things more interesting, points-based scoring will help to level the playing field. The initial draw can be done however you choose, but the final winner won’t necessarily be dictated by who wins the World Cup. The points could be allocated in a system like this:
3 pts – Win
1 pt – Draw
5 pts – Round of 32
8 pts – Quarter-final
12 pts – Semi-final
18 pts – Winner
+2 pts – Clean sheet
+3 pts – Underdog bonus (if ranked in the bottom 12)
This will keep things even more interesting, especially if you’ve drawn a few weaker teams, as you might still have a chance of picking up points!
“Dynamic Draw” Sweepstake
In this particular method it’s more of a hybrid system, where participants will get multiple chances to draw throughout the tournament. The initial draw here requires not all teams to be drawn, so ensure that, however many players you have, teams remain in the pot after the initial draw.
At the start, participants will randomly draw their teams just like in a standard sweepstake, but then after each knockout round, they’ll have the opportunity to draw another team. This can keep everyone invested throughout the tournament, even if their initial team is eliminated early.
The participant who ends up with the winning team at the end gets the grand prize. If there are multiple rounds of drawing, you could introduce secondary prizes such as for the best team to come from the later rounds, or the best-performing underdog team.
This method allows for continued engagement as the tournament progresses. So, even if a person’s team is knocked out early, they can still have a chance to get another team that could make it far in the tournament!
