Crypto Predictions Site Polymarket Foresees Republicans Winning Both Senate and House

The site is giving an overall 64% chance to Republicans for taking control of Congress.

Oct 27, 2022 at 8:22 a.m. UTC

Updated Oct 27, 2022 at 4:55 p.m. UTC

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Cryptocurrency predictions site Polymarket has started its 2022 Midterms Live Forecast and is predicting Republicans will comfortably control both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.

The site is giving an overall 64% chance of Republicans taking control of Congress, and 87% chance of them winning the House, indicating Democrats could be in for a rude shock. According to the site, the tightest Senate races will be in the states of Arizona (Democrats having a 51% chance of winning), Georgia (Republicans having a 52% chance of winning), and Pennsylvania (Republicans edging out with a 63% chance of winning).

Polymarket lets people trade on the likelihood of future events in real-time as a tamper-proof smart contract on an Ethereum layer 2 platform.

So far midterms-related trading has resulted in a volume of $2 million and liquidity of $500,000. The 2022 U.S. midterm elections will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, in which all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 Senate seats will be contested.

"Time and time again, prediction markets prove more accurate than traditional polls and pundits," tweeted Shayne Coplan, CEO of Polymarket HQ. "Yet the true value comes from generating unbiased forecasts as a public good," he added.

In January, Polymarket was fined $1.4 million and ordered to cease its offering by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The predictions site then gave access to only non-U.S. users.

The site has also accepted bets on “Will Russia use a nuclear weapon before 2023?” following increased calls by Russian authorities to utilize such weapons. The odds offered then was 17 to 1, meaning you'd win $17 for every $1 you bet. On the other hand, betting correctly on "No" would win you $1.06 for every $1 you bet. This translates to a 6% probability of Russia using a nuke this year.

The site is also taking bets on the question of "who will win the U.S. 2024 Republican presidential nomination?", with Donald Trump leading the pack.

UPDATE (Oct. 27, 16:55 UTC): Adds numbers for midterms-related trading for all 44 questions instead of only questions referred to in the article and clarifies site only changed who it gave access to and didn’t restart.

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