A simple yes or no can still be complicated. The nuance of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s words stoked palpable confusion and wild price swings on Polymarket today, as the independent presidential candidate suspended his campaign for U.S. president.
A Polymarket wager garnering over $300,000 in total bets hinged on whether the scion of the Kennedy political dynasty would “drop out Friday.” The market would resolve “Yes,” it said, if Kennedy “officially announces his withdrawal” from November’s razor-thin election.
As Kennedy spoke, those odds nosedived to a 6% chance, as the candidate insisted he was not stepping aside from the race completely. Rather, Kennedy said he was removing his name from the ballot in battleground states like Arizona, which could sway the election’s ultimate outcome.
The steep drop occurred in a matter of minutes, as Polymarket traders had penciled in a 90% chance that Kennedy would drop out Friday shortly before he spoke in Arizona. At one point, those odds climbed to a 99% chance before plummeting.
“I’m not terminating my campaign, I’m simply suspending it,” Kennedy said. “Our polling consistently showed by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues.”
As confusion spread, Polymarket traders argued whether the wager should be resolved each way. Kennedy’s chances of dropping out today, meanwhile, steadily rose. Still, as of this writing, the market was tilting toward “No,” pricing in a 41% chance that Kennedy did drop out.
“What the fuck is going on?” the Polymarket user Donkov asked, buying and selling shares that Kennedy would drop out at least 10 times within the course of an hour.
“I am watching the stream, and I have no idea what [this] guy is trying to say,” the Polymarket user GreedyMacFear added. “So, I sold all my ‘NO.’”
Polymarket is no stranger to controversial outcomes. The platform has weathered several this year, including a $680,000 market in June, which hinged on whether LayerZero, a so-called omnichain interoperability protocol, had indeed conducted an airdrop.
That market was disputed, leaving the outcome to UMA, a DeFi protocol that settles disputes using tokens. UMA token holders are directed to vote on which outcome has actually taken place, through a process that UMA describes as its “decentralized truth machine.”
Some Polymarket users posted articles from news outlets supporting their bets. One Fox News article that was shared, for example, said that Kennedy “dropped his White House bid,” while an article from Reuters said that Kennedy “abandoned his campaign on Friday.”
As of this writing, the Polymarket contest on Kennedy had not been disputed. Notably, it had not been resolved either, with the contest set to reach a conclusion on Friday at midnight.
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
