Cabo Verde won my heart early in the World Cup. Then they went out.
After that, I didn't have much of a stake in the tournament. I enjoyed watching, but there wasn't anyone left whose result felt personal.
Or so I thought.
As the tournament went on, I gradually found myself supporting another team. Nothing deliberate. I just kept wanting them to get through. By the final, I had real hopes for them. Enough that I caught myself thinking about how annoyed I'd be if they lost.
That felt like too much emotional exposure for a team I'd only adopted during the tournament.
So I bet on the other team to win.
I wasn't betting because I thought I had an edge. I wasn't even really trying to make money. I was hedging my emotions.
If the team I supported won, I'd be happy and consider the lost bet the price of getting the result I wanted. If they lost, the payout would give me something in return. Not enough to erase the disappointment, but enough to take the edge off it.
There is actual research on this exact behavior. During the 2018 World Cup, researchers at the University of Warwick ran an experiment with 94 England supporters. Participants placed small bets either for England or for England's opponent. When England won, the people who bet against them weren't significantly less happy. When England lost, the happiness of those who had hedged was more stable than that of the people who backed England.
In other words, losing the bet didn't ruin the win. Winning it softened the loss.
People were still reluctant to do it. Betting against the team they supported felt disloyal, even though the bet had no effect on the match. The researchers argued that we overestimate how bad that supposed betrayal will feel and underestimate how unpleasant it is to lose both emotionally and financially.
The size of the bet matters, of course. Too much money and you create a genuine conflict over which team you want to win. The point isn't to replace one source of anxiety with another. It's to put down an amount you'd be perfectly content to lose in exchange for the result you want.
That's how I thought about it: an insurance premium.
I still knew exactly who I wanted to win. I'd just arranged for the alternative to hurt a little less.