US government shutdown
A deadline, a vote that does or does not happen, and a definition of "shutdown" that varies more between contracts than most readers expect.
- How often
- Whenever appropriations lapse — recurring around funding deadlines rather than on a fixed calendar.
- Who decides, and on what
- Congress, by failing to enact appropriations. What counts as a shutdown for settlement purposes is defined in each contract's rules.
Open markets on US government shutdown
Live prediction markets whose question turns on this event. Prices update with the rest of the site.
How accurate have these markets been?
The corpus holds 0 scored markets of this kind so far. We publish a hit rate from 30 — fewer than that rewards luck rather than measuring anything.
Measured on our own corpus of resolved markets, using the price seven days before resolution. A band shows a rate only from 30 cases — fewer than that rewards luck. A historical frequency is not a probability for the next one.
The definition is the contract
"Will the government shut down" sounds unambiguous and is not. Does a lapse of a few hours over a weekend count? Does a partial lapse affecting some agencies? Does a continuing resolution passed minutes after midnight?
Different contracts answer those differently, and the answer is in the resolution text rather than the title. This is the event type where reading the rules changes the position most often.
Why the price moves in steps
These markets do not drift — they jump. A leadership statement, a scheduled vote, a procedural motion: each one either removes a path to a deal or restores it, and the price reprices discontinuously.
That makes them poor candidates for reading a trend and good candidates for having a view on process. The people who do well on them are usually tracking the legislative calendar rather than the news cycle.
Common questions
What triggers a government shutdown?
A lapse in appropriations — Congress not enacting funding before the deadline. What counts for settlement purposes, including partial or very brief lapses, is defined in each contract's rules rather than by a common standard.
How accurate have shutdown markets been?
The figures on this page come from our own resolved-market corpus. Where the sample is below the publication threshold, the page shows how large it is instead of a hit rate.
Why do these prices jump instead of drifting?
Because the underlying process is discrete. A scheduled vote or a leadership statement either opens or closes a path to a deal, and the price reprices in a step rather than sliding.