World Cup album could cost more than R$7,000, researcher estimates

With the 2026 World Cup just a few months away, the traditional sticker fever has begun and, along with it, the math to find out how much it costs to complete the album. The topic has gained prominence in the press with analyses by IMPA researcher Milton Jara, who has been interviewed by media outlets such as CNN Brazil and Estadão.

In the interviews, the mathematician explained how probability theory helps to understand why completing the album without exchanging stickers can become an expensive and extremely unlikely mission.

According to the calculations presented by Jara to CNN Brasil, a collector would need to buy, on average, around 6,750 stickers to complete the 2026 World Cup album alone, the equivalent of approximately 964 packs.

“The chance is an astronomical number,” said the researcher, comparing the probability of completing the album without repeating chromes with winning Mega da Virada. “It’s infinitely easier to win Mega da Virada,” he joked.

In an interview with Estadão, Jara also detailed how the increase in the number of teams in this edition has a direct impact on the final cost of the collection. The 2026 World Cup will have 48 participating teams and an album with 980 stickers – the largest in the tournament’s history.

According to the researcher, completing the album can exceed R$7,000, depending on the strategy adopted by the collector and the number of exchanges made.

One of the mathematical concepts used to understand the sticker phenomenon is Markov Chains, a model that describes random processes in which the probability of an event depends only on the current state of the system.

As the album fills up, finding a new sticker becomes more difficult – exactly the kind of behavior studied by the mathematics of probability.