Does Stephen Colbert win the variety series Emmy?
Traders are heavily backing one show to win the night’s biggest variety award, and the odds are starting to look almost too good to ignore
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert enters tonight's 78th Primetime Emmys as the clear favorite to win Outstanding Variety Series on Kalshi, sitting at 72 cents and having already secured five Creative Arts Emmys over the weekend of September 5–6, 2026. Its closest competitors (Last Week Tonight, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and The Daily Show) left the Creative Arts ceremony empty-handed.
A key storyline leading into tonight is The Late Show's recent victory in Writing for a Variety Series, which snapped Last Week Tonight's decade-long dominance in that category. Historically, the writing award has been a strong predictor: in 10 of the last 10 years, and 16 of 18 since 2008, the writing winner also took home the top series prize.
Colbert's team is no stranger to Emmy success. The Late Show defended its 2025 Outstanding Talk Series title won on September 14, 2025, marking its first major series Emmy after eight straight losses between 2015 and 2024, six of those to Last Week Tonight. Across his career, Stephen Colbert has accumulated 51 nominations and 12 Emmys, including two Outstanding Variety Series wins for The Colbert Report in 2013 and 2014.
By contrast, Last Week Tonight enters with only three total nominations this year, while Saturday Night Live leads the field with 11 but lacks a writing nomination. And Jimmy Kimmel Live! holds six nominations but has never secured the series award.
Another important factor is the Emmys' move to an "area award" structure this year. According to the Academy's 2026 rulebook, any nominee receiving at least 90% "Yes" votes on ballots automatically wins an Emmy, meaning multiple winners are technically possible.
In practice, though, no area award has produced more than one winner in roughly 260 category-years across the Academy's 11 craft area categories. Outstanding Variety Series is the first program category to use the structure, and this month's Creative Arts ceremonies yielded exactly one winner per category. A tie would require two shows to independently clear the 90% threshold, which becomes increasingly unlikely in a competitive race.
We think The Late Show at 72 cents offers a very lucrative opportunity to capture a 38.89% return. Although a tie remains a non-zero risk, the structural and historical headwinds against multiple winners make Colbert's show the strongest bet to take home the trophy tonight.
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