Prediction markets are not convinced President Donald Trump’s war in Iran will quickly topple its regime.
Polymarket gives the United States and Israel only a 28 percent chance of ousting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei by March 31—and only a 51 percent chance of toppling the regime by the year’s end, according to figures as of late Saturday morning.
Trump’s overnight strikes in Iran, carried out without Congressional approval while much of the country was fast asleep, caused the odds of regime change in Iran to spike, but likely not as much as the White House would expect.
Polymarket has accepted $8.5 million in wagers on whether there will be a regime change in Iran by March 31. A smaller market, with nearly $400,000 wagered, said Saturday morning there is only a 23 percent chance that Iran and the United States reach a nuclear deal by March 31.
Allies of the 79-year-old Trump, including Elon Musk, have expressed that prediction markets are more accurate than political polling. This belief stems in part from the 2024 election, when traditional polls predicted a much closer race between Trump and Kamala Harris, while markets like Kaslhi and Polymarket were closer to reality in showing a Trump sweep of the swing states.
Now those same markets are suggesting they believe Trump is dragging the United States into another lengthy war in the Middle East—something he and his vice president, JD Vance, said they would never do on the campaign trail when they repeatedly said, “No new wars.”
The odds of a rapid regime change in Iran are higher on Kalshi, but an immediate shift in power for the country of 92 million is still not favored.
Kalshi, which has accepted $41 million in wagers on the market, gives Trump just a 20 percent chance of ousting Khamenei by Sunday. However, it gives Trump’s mission a 63 percent chance of success by April 1 and a 68 percent chance by July 1.
Trump said in an early-morning address that war was necessary to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Eerily, he warned that the regime change more than 6,000 miles from home would likely come at the expense of the lives of American service members.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties; that often happens in war,” he said from Mar-a-Lago, where he hosted a black-tie gala on Friday. “We’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”
