The 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off on 11 June. If you want to run a sweepstake for your office, group chat or group of friends, everything you need is in one free download below: print-and-cut draw slips for all 48 teams, a tracking spreadsheet, and a complete organiser guide with a sample invite email and prize structure suggestions.
The kit uses our model's team ratings to sort all 48 nations into tiers - Contender, Dark Horse or Wildcard - so participants have some context about who they have drawn, without turning the draw slip into a probability lecture.
⬇ Download the World Cup 2026 Sweepstake Kit — Free
What's in the Kit
The download is a single zip file containing three files.
Draw slips (HTML file, print in browser)
All 48 teams on print-ready A4 pages, 8 slips per page. Each slip shows the team name, their group, their FIFA ranking and their tier label. Open the file in any browser and print - no special software needed. Cut the slips out and you are ready to draw.
Sweepstake tracker (Spreadsheet)
A pre-filled spreadsheet with all 48 teams sorted by group, ready for you to record who drew which team. Columns cover participant name, contact details and payment status, with a dropdown for the paid column. Use it digitally or print it and fill it in by hand, the layout works both ways. A second sheet contains setup instructions and prize structure ideas.
Organiser guide (HTML file, print in browser)
A single A4 page covering everything the organiser needs: how to run the draw step by step, a sample invite email you can copy and customise, and a full breakdown of prize structure options. Prints cleanly from any browser.
The Tier Labels
With 48 teams, a winner-takes-all pot means most participants will lose interest before the group stage is over. The draw slips include a tier label for each nation, based on pre-tournament bookmaker market rankings, so participants have a quick read of their team's prospects.
| Tier | Market rank | Teams |
|---|---|---|
| ★★★ Contender | 1–8 | 8 |
| ★★ Dark Horse | 9–20 | 12 |
| ★ Wildcard | 21–48 | 28 |
The Contender tier covers the realistic winners: Spain, France, Argentina, England and the other front-runners. Dark Horses have a credible route to the later rounds but are priced as outsiders. The Wildcard tier covers the remaining 28 nations, the majority of the draw.
More than half the teams in any sweepstake will be Wildcards. That is not a problem, it is an argument for a prize structure that gives Wildcard holders something to cheer for beyond the first round.
For the full model ratings and tournament probabilities for all 48 teams, see our World Cup 2026 predictions page.
Prize Structure Ideas
The organiser guide goes into full detail, but the short version is this: winner-takes-all is easy to manage but kills engagement. A tiered pot keeps more people invested to the final.
Recommended structure for most groups:
Divide the pot so the tournament winner takes around 60%, the runner-up takes 20%, and the remaining 20% is split between the two semi-finalists. This keeps four people with live interest on the final weekend, which is usually enough to keep a group engaged throughout.
Bonus prizes that give every team a purpose:
The best sweepstakes give Wildcard holders something to play for beyond elimination. Three ideas that work particularly well:
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Group stage topper - a small fixed prize (or the entry fee back) for anyone whose team wins their group. Relevant for the first two weeks, when the Wildcards are still very much in it.
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Golden goal - whoever's team scores the first goal of the entire tournament wins a side pot. Pure luck, equal for everyone regardless of draw quality. A Wildcard has the same chance here as a Contender.
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Wooden spoon - a small prize for the participant whose team is knocked out earliest. Turns the worst possible draw into its own subplot.
These additions cost little from the main pot but significantly extend how long every participant stays invested.
Before the Draw: Collect Fees First
One practical note that is easy to overlook: collect all entry fees before you run the draw, not after. Once someone knows they have drawn a Wildcard nation, the likelihood of them paying drops sharply. Having the money in before anyone sees their team removes the problem entirely.
The tracker spreadsheet includes a paid column for exactly this reason, it makes it easy to see at a glance who has and has not paid when people start asking about the draw.
Using Our World Cup Data Alongside the Sweepstake
If participants want to go deeper on their drawn team - tournament history, model rating, group fixtures and knockout probabilities - every one of the 48 nations has a dedicated page in our World Cup 2026 section.
The tournament predictions page ranks all 48 teams by win probability and shows where our model and the bookmaker market diverge most significantly, which is useful context if you are following the tournament from a betting angle as well as a sweepstake one.
⬇ Download the World Cup 2026 Sweepstake Kit — Free
Related articles
World Cup 2026 Predictions
Our model rates all 48 teams and simulates the full bracket. Spain lead at 21.2%, but the most interesting outputs are the teams where the model and the market disagree significantly: World Cup 2026 Predictions.
World Cup 2026 Fixtures and UK Kick-Off Times
The full group stage schedule with BST kick-off times for all 72 matches - including the 44% of fixtures that kick off between midnight and 5am UK time: World Cup 2026 Fixtures and UK Times.
World Cup 2026 Group Predictions
Every group broken down by qualification probability, group win chance and the teams the market has mispriced at group level: World Cup 2026 Group Predictions.