Thanks to Jesse Richardson for discussion.

Polymarket asks: will Jesus Christ return in 2025?

In the three days since the market opened, traders have wagered over $100,000 on this question. The market traded as high as 5%, and is now stably trading at 3%. Right now, if you wanted to, you could place a bet that Jesus Christ will not return this year, and earn over $13,000 if you're right.

There are two mysteries here: an easy one, and a harder one.

The easy mystery is: if people are willing to bet $13,000 on "Yes", why isn't anyone taking them up?

The answer is that, if you wanted to do that, you'd have to put down over $1 million of your own money, locking it up inside Polymarket through the end of the year. At the end of that year, you'd get 1% returns on your investment. [...]

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First published:
March 24th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LBC2TnHK8cZAimdWF/will-jesus-christ-return-in-an-election-year

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

Order book trading interface showing price levels from 1.1¢ to 1.5¢.

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“Will Jesus Christ return in an election year?” by Eric Neyman

LessWrong (30+ Karma)