The effect is a fun, entertaining and mystifying mentalism routine based (obviously!) on the football World Cup taking place this summer in Brazil.

Here is the effect in more detail:

The performer shows three envelopes. He explains that one contains a prediction and that he will get back to it shortly. The other two contain the names of all 32 football teams playing in the tournament.

For ease of selection, they have been split into 2 groups, with one envelope containing the teams from the Northern Hemisphere and the other envelope containing those from the Southern Hemisphere. This, explains the performer, is a very low-tech version of how the groups are selected for the World Cup proper.

The spectator chooses an envelope and opens it, picking out a slip of paper bearing the name of a team. If he doesn't like it, he can replace it and choose a different one.

Once he has decided on a team, the performer apparently reads his mind and reveals the name of that team.

And then as a kicker he hands the prediction to the spectator who opens it to find that it is a betting slip for that exact same team to win the World Cup!

Nothing is written down.

It is a different team every time and the revelation doesn't involve any ‘fishing’ or unusual selection procedures.

It really is as simple as taking a piece of paper out of an envelope.

Intrigued?