Will Jesus Christ return in 2025? People are betting real money on this outcome on Polymarket.
If you think Jesus is due for a return visit by the end of the year, you can buy a YES share on Polymarket for $0.03, as long as there's someone willing to buy a matching NO share for $0.97. And there are: as of today, June 2, 2025, the volume for this bet is $513,000.
If Jesus returns sometime in 2025, YES shares will be worth $1 each, and NO shares will be worth nothing. If Jesus doesn't return by the end of 2025, YES shares will be worthless and NO shares will be worth $1.
Eric Neyman, who runs the Unexpected Values blog, looked into why anyone would buy a YES share. And also, why more people aren't buying NO shares. He concludes that the people who bought YES shares aren't really betting that Jesus is coming back; they are betting that people who locked up their funds buying NO shares will sell them at a loss to use the money on other bets with bigger payouts.
If enough people want to sell their "No" shares, the "Yes" holders may be able to sell out at an elevated price, like 6%, potentially getting a 2x return on their investment!
The Time Value of Money hypothesis posits that the Yes bettors are more sophisticated than they look. In finance, time value of money is the idea that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow, because you can do things with that dollar, such as making bets. The Yes traders are betting that the time value of Polymarket cash will go up unexpectedly: that other traders will be short on cash to place bets with, and will at some point be willing to pay a premium to free up the cash that they spent betting against Jesus.
Previously:
• Prediction markets bet against bird flu becoming the next COVID-19
• You Betcha: Speculation, space, and markets for alien life
• Skinner-box rats trained to predict currency market movements
• How to make money betting against Qanon
