How a prediction market settles
Every market has written rules. They decide who gets paid, and they're often stricter than the headline.
When the event is over, a market settles: contracts on the right answer pay $1, the rest pay nothing. What counts as the right answer is set by the market's written rules, not by the headline.
The rules come first
Each market names a resolution source, like an official result, an agency's announcement or a call by a news agency, and a deadline. If the event hasn't happened by the deadline, the market usually settles on No. We link the full rules from every market page.
The catches
Formal steps count, not news. Israel's prime-minister market pays out when someone is sworn in, not when a party wins the most seats. So the seat result is in while the prime-minister market is still trading.
Ties and tie-breaks. A 50-50 US Senate goes to the vice president's party, and the market rules follow that. See the midterms page.
Ladders. "By June 30" and "by December 31" are separate contracts in one market. Once a date passes, that contract settles, and the later ones keep trading.
Disputes
On Polymarket, a proposed result can be challenged before it's final, and a dispute goes to a vote by holders of the UMA token, the system Polymarket uses to settle markets. Most markets settle without one.
After it settles
Our standing pages switch to the result on the same address, with what the market priced beforehand. See how that looked for Brazil's runoff, and how settled markets did overall on the accuracy page.