Politics
Politics and elections
Election markets are the oldest use of prediction markets and still the one where the resolution wording does the most damage.
A market on who wins is rarely settled by the vote count alone — it is settled by a named authority certifying a result, sometimes weeks later, sometimes after a challenge. Markets on nominations, appointments and confirmations each hang on a different official act.
That is why the same event can trade at two prices on two venues: the questions are not identical even when the headlines are.
US presidential election
The largest prediction markets in the world settle on this question, and it is not decided by the national vote total. It is decided by 538 electors, a handful of states, and a certification process that runs for weeks after election night.
Open entryElectoral College and certification
Election night produces a number that nobody in the process treats as final. The Electoral College turns state results into 538 votes over eleven weeks, and every step of that has a date and a named authority.
Open entryControl of Congress
Two chambers, two completely different games. The House turns over entirely every two years; the Senate replaces a third of itself, and which third is decided decades in advance.
Open entryNominations and confirmations
A confirmation market looks like a personality question and is really a procedural one. The nominee rarely loses a vote - what happens is that the vote never gets scheduled.
Open entryGovernment shutdowns
A shutdown is not a political mood, it is a legal condition: money stops being appropriated, and a 19th-century statute makes spending it a crime. Everything else follows from that.
Open entryThe Supreme Court
The merits docket is one of the most predictable calendars in American government. The emergency docket has no calendar at all - and that is where the decisions that move prices tend to come from.
Open entryLeaving office
The largest family of political contracts asks the same question about very different systems: is this person still in the job on that date. The answer always comes from a document - and there are six of them.
Open entryGambling regulation
Three separate authorities regulate this industry and none of them regulates all of it. That gap is where prediction markets live - and it is what the largest contract in this subject is about.
Open entry
How these markets resolve
- Certification by a named electoral authority, not a network call on election night.
- A formal act: a nomination submitted, a confirmation vote, an inauguration.
- For a leadership market, the moment the party's own rules say the office changes hands.