spent way too long doing the math on phemex's world cup prediction thing and the "easy" groups are a trap

so phemex is running this world cup prediction game where each of the 12 groups has a fixed $5,000 pool that gets split among everyone who correctly picks the top 2 to advance. costs 2 of their in-event "golden balls" per group to enter. no real money to pick, you earn the balls in the event.

everyone's instinct is to lock in the obvious groups. group C with brazil. group J with argentina. group L with england. and yeah you'll probably be "right". but so will literally everyone else, and $5,000 / (a zillion correct people) is basically nothing each.

the actual value is in the messy groups. group B (canada/switzerland/qatar/bosnia) or group E (germany/curacao/ivory coast/ecuador) — way fewer people will nail the exact top 2, so the same $5k splits across a much smaller pool. fewer correct = bigger slice.

since it's a fixed pool per group, your payout isn't "am i right", it's "am i right when most people are wrong". totally different question.

anyone else playing this? which groups are you fading the chalk on?
https://phemex.com/football-championship/2026-ultimate-championship?group=8875&referralCode=C8J3H9

(nfa obviously, i'm just min-maxing a free game lol)