Russia's biggest election market is priced completely wrong

United Russia already holds 323 of the 450 seats in Russia's parliament. Polymarket's Russian election market charges 64 cents for it to gain the most seats on September 20, and 30 cents for a six-year-old party called New People, which holds 13.

The market settles on the party that gains the most seats "compared to before the election", and resolution "will be based solely on the number of seats gained".

Which turns the whole thing into fourth-grade arithmetic.

• Russia elects 450 members, half by each party's share of the national vote and half by local district
• United Russia holds 323, so only 127 seats in the country are not already its own
• New People won 5.32% and 13 seats in 2021, all from the national share and no districts
• United Russia won 49.82% and 324 that year, and VTsIOM now has it at 33.5%
• The same tracker has New People at 9.5%, close to double what it got last time
• However, FOM had New People at half VTsIOM's number this spring.

List seats go out in proportion to the vote, so 5.32% bought New People 13 of them and 9.5% buys about 24. Ten seats gained, without winning a single district.

Ten is a low bar because everybody else is going backward. The Communists won 18.93% and poll 9.7%. Just Russia won 7.46% and has dropped out of VTsIOM's top four. LDPR is flat. New People is the only party in Russia polling above its own last result.

Sure, the BESA Center writes that no serious analyst doubts a United Russia majority. But winning and gaining the most seats compared to the previous election is not the same thing. You do not add a lot to your current 323 seats while polling 16 points lower.

Which is why buying New People at 30 cents to triple your position is not that crazy as it sounds. It's an asymmetric bet. If you read the settlement rules carefully and look at the data, the trade starts to look obvious.