World Cup: Any Player to Score a Hat Trick?
Hat Tricks at the 2026 World Cup: Will Anyone Pull It Off?
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is shaping up to be the biggest in the tournament's history - 48 teams, 104 matches, and more goals flying around than ever before. With that expanded format comes more group-stage mismatches, more lopsided scorelines, and, in theory, more chances for a striker to go absolutely berserk and bag three in a single game. It has happened at every World Cup in recent memory, and the question on Polymarket is simply: will it happen again?
This is not exactly a niche question. Hat tricks are rare enough to be special but common enough that betting against one occurring across an entire 104-game tournament feels, as one commenter put it, like being "mental." History backs that instinct. The 2018 World Cup in Russia gave us Cristiano Ronaldo's hat trick against Spain in the group stage alone. The 2022 tournament in Qatar had Gonzalo Montiel... actually, no, that was a penalty shootout - but Kylian Mbappe scored a hat trick against Argentina in the final. The point stands.
The market currently prices a hat trick at around 88.5% probability, which is about as close to "yes, obviously" as prediction markets get without fully committing. The 11.5% on the "No" side represents either genuine sceptics, people hedging other positions, or perhaps fans of defensive football who believe 48 nations will somehow collectively produce 104 tight, cagey draws. Spoiler: they will not.
The key scenario for "No" would require every single match to end without any player scoring three times - a statistical long shot across 104 games. The "Yes" case, by contrast, only needs one moment of brilliance from one striker, anywhere in the tournament, across six weeks of football. Given the expanded field includes several genuinely weak defensive sides, the probability of at least one clinical forward having a field day seems very high indeed.
The takeaway here is straightforward: the market is not saying hat tricks are guaranteed, just that across a tournament of this size, the odds strongly favour it happening at least once. Participants seem to believe the expanded format works heavily in favour of "Yes," and the historical record supports that view. Whether 88.5% feels like fair value is a judgement call - but the logic behind it is hard to argue with.
FAQ
Q: What counts as a hat trick for this market?
A: A hat trick is defined as one player scoring three or more goals in a single match. Goals in regular time, stoppage time, and extra time all count, and penalty kicks taken during those periods count too. However, own goals are excluded, and so are goals scored in a penalty shootout.
Q: Which matches are covered - does it have to be a final or a specific round?
A: Any match across the entire 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifies. From the group stage all the way through to the final, if any player bags a hat trick in any single game, the market resolves "Yes".
Q: What happens if the tournament is postponed or cancelled?
A: If the 2026 FIFA World Cup is cancelled or postponed after August 2, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET, the market resolves "No". The same applies if it becomes unclear whether a hat trick was recorded within that timeframe, so the deadline acts as a hard cutoff for resolution purposes.
What traders are saying
Scroll through the Polymarket comments on "World Cup: Any Player to Score a Hat Trick?" and you will see a mix of hot takes and sober analysis. Here are a few of the more upvoted ones:
- "dude WHY are people saying NO ONE WILL SCORE A HAT TRICK THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD CUP ARE WE MENTAL"
- "freeest money oat"
As always, comments are not a forecast by themselves, but they do show what traders are paying attention to right now.
