World Cup Betting Tips: Jamie’s Treble for the Opening Three Games

After two seasons of good profit, our 3-3-3 columnist Jamie Pacheco will be branching out this summer and bringing us his daily World Cup trebles and he looks to continue his fine tipping form.

He opens with liking Mexico to win a low scoring game, South Korea earning several corners and a bad-tempered match between Canada and Bosnia. Check out what and why below as he takes us through his World Cup Betting Tips across the first three games of the tournament...

Sports Welcome Offer

New customers only. Deposit via Debit Card & place first bet £10+ (1/1+) on Sports in 7 days. £30 Sports & £20 Acca Free Bets within 10 hrs of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility, payment excl. & T&Cs Apply.

Sports Welcome Offer

New customers only. Deposit via Debit Card & place first bet £10+ (1/1+) on Sports in 7 days. £30 Sports & £20 Acca Free Bets within 10 hrs of settlement. 7-day expiry. Eligibility, payment excl. & T&Cs Apply.

For the past two years, I've been running the 3-3-3 column.  

Here were the rules regarding how it worked.  

3 - The number of different selections making up the acca. 

3 - The number of different (non-English) European Leagues the selections are taken from every week. 

3 - The minimum odds (3/1) or 4.0 if you prefer, that the acca will come to it every week. 

And these were the column's results over the past two years, so pretty impressive stuff.  

2025-26 season Current P and L: +16.5pts  

2024-25 season's P and L: +16.9pts     

There will be a special edition of the 3-3-3 column during the Group Stages of the World Cup and possibly beyond. Of course, there won't be matches picked from three different leagues this time round as they're all from the same competition, but there will be picks from three different matches, and they'll always come to at least 3/1 across the acca. So we're keeping things as close as possible to the classic 3-3-3 format.  

There are 3-4 matches on most days, so there will be one 3-3-3 column a day, though with the first three matches of the tournament played across two days, the initial one will be a bit different. Now that you're all up to date, let's get started.  

• Mexico v South Africa
• Thursday, June 11, 20.00 
• Back Mexico to win and Under 3.5 Goals @ 9/10 

Mexico arrive in this tournament in good shape, with a solid world ranking of 15 and playing on home soil, the altitude at the Azteca Stadium seen as a big advantage to them.  

The one slight problem for them is that they didn't have to play the qualifying campaign, so they will have been on a diet of international friendlies for the past year or so, since playing at the Gold Cup last summer.  

But they should be too good for South Africa. SA secured qualification for the WC, which is good for a side that often misses out, but they went out early in the African Nations Cup at the start of the year, and results since have been pretty ordinary, with draws against Nicaragua, Panama and Jamaica and a 2-1 defeat at home to the same Panama in friendlies.  

So the dice are loaded in favour of Mexico, but it may be a little tight. Six of their last eight games have stayed under 2.5 goals, and in only two of them did Mexico score more than two goals.  In those eight they kept clean sheets against Portugal and also the likes of Australia, Ghana and Iceland, teams at a similar level to South Africa. Another Mexico clean sheet could well be on the cards (let's hope so) but all in all, we think this one will end with a Mexico win and under 3.5 goals in the game.  

• South Korea v Czechia   
• Friday June 12, 03:00  
• Back Over 3.5 Home (Korea) corners @ 8/15

This is surely one of the hardest games to call of the Group Stages. If I had a fiver to place on a correct score, it would probably be on 1-1, but any one of the three outcomes wouldn't surprise me, so in light of that, I'll be staying well away from the match winner or even the goals markets.  

Instead, I'll focus on an area of strength for Korea of late: corners.  

Here's their corner count in the last eight matches they've played, with opponents in friendlies ranging from Brazil to Ghana to Trinidad.  

5, 1, 8, 5, 7, 6, 8, 8.   

So when looking at the over 3.5 corners line, they would have cleared that in seven of their last eight, and that includes doing so against strong teams like Brazil and Austria.  In most of those, they did so with plenty to spare, aided by the fact they like to get the ball out wide rather than attacking from more central areas.  

There's a tendency to be more aggressive here by going with over 4.5 or even 5.5 based on the numbers above, but Czechia are a tough team, so we'll keep things more conservative here.   

• Canada v Bosnia  
• Friday, June 12, 20.00 
• Back Over 3.5 Cards @ 8/13 

If you're looking for a bet involving a few cards, a good starting point would be to bet on a match involving a team that gets a fair few of them. So step forward Bosnia, who topped the European rankings for most yellow cards in qualifying with 28 from 10 games, remembering they played a couple more than most because they were in the Playoffs.  

Those 28 were six more than the next 'best' Ireland. To give you some context, Spain and Switzerland got just four each in six games.  

As for Canada, it's always a little hard to tell from friendlies what sort of team they are regarding cards, but we do still note that they had two yellows in each of their last two games against Ireland and Uzbekistan and four against Tunisia, so they seem to get a few, too.  

The man in charge here is Argentina's Facundo Tello, who showed 42 yellows in nine games so far in 2026 (4.6 a game) and a red. He was even more card-happy in 2025 with 186 yellows in 34 games (5.47 a game) in addition to nine reds, so he doesn't mind taking players' names. Let's hope there's more of that here.  

James's Fun Fact  

Aged 40 and 86 days, Bosnia's Edin Dzeko is the fifth-oldest player at the 2026 World Cup, beaten by Luka Modric, Guillermo Ochoa, Cristiano Ronaldo and Scotland's Craig Gordon, who is 43.