Only one of these 22 leaders can actually leave office

Polymarket runs a market on which of 22 world leaders is the first to lose power before 2027. Benjamin Netanyahu is the favorite at 43%. Nobody else is above 7%.

The rules say that the leader must be genuinely replaced, so resigning, losing an election, or staying on as a caretaker does not count until somebody else is actually installed. And only the first departure counts, so the 21 leaders who go second pay nothing.

So, who is leaving the office this year? Only one of the 22 has any scheduled way out of office before New Year, and that's Benjamin Netanyahu. On October 27, Israel votes to elect the new prime minister, and Netanyahu's odds of winning are quite low, hence why the contract is trading at 43%. Additionally, nobody else on the board faces an election, a term ending, or a handover in the next four months, and Gavin Newsom, the only other one with a known end date, does not hand California over until January.

Therefore, this is not really a market about 22 leaders. It is a bet on how fast Israel can build a government.

Israeli law keeps the sitting prime minister in place until a new one is sworn in, so Netanyahu holds the job until somebody physically replaces him. From polling day to New Year's Eve is 65 days. Israel's last five governments took 55 days, 58, 76, 82 and 58 to form, and two further elections in the same run produced no government at all and had to be rerun.

Our strategy here is quite conservative. Given that both scenarios have a roughly equal chance of occurring, the optimal approach would be to purchase the ‘Yes’ ‘Netanyahu - Israel PM’ contract at 43 cents and the ‘Yes’ ‘None before 2027’ contract at 34 cents. This way, we cover all possible outcomes and simultaneously secure a 29.87% return.