Bet on "Christ's Second Coming" to earn 5.5%. What is behind the prosperity of Polymarket?

In 2025, a contract on Polymarket titled “Will Jesus Christ return to Earth in 2025” attracted approximately $3.3 million in funding. The event was ultimately judged as “No,” and investors who bet on “Will not happen” at the high point in April earned about a 5.5% annualized return, even surpassing U.S. Treasury yields during the same period. This number may seem small, but it reflects how prediction markets are attracting speculative capital and highlights the risks and controversies faced by this emerging market.

How Strange Is the Pricing Logic of Prediction Markets

The key to why this “Second Coming of Christ” contract attracted so much money lies in the unique pricing mechanism of prediction markets. The news pointed out that the contract once maintained a probability of “Second Coming” at over 3%. This means market participants are truly voting with their money, pricing in the likelihood of a religious event occurring.

An interesting phenomenon here is that, although the event was ultimately judged as “No,” after the 2026 version was re-listed, the market still assigned about a 2% probability to the event. In other words, even though history has proven it won’t happen, speculative capital is still paying for this extremely low-probability event. This reflects the speculative nature of prediction markets under the “low probability, high return” narrative—participants may not truly believe it will happen but are playing a probability game.

Return Attractiveness vs. Risk Concerns

A 5.5% annualized return may not seem high, but it is somewhat attractive in the current environment:

The key issue is that this 5.5% return requires investors to accurately predict that the event will not happen. According to recent information, some prediction contracts on Polymarket have already faced insider trading controversies—traders profited $400,000 by precisely betting on “Venezuelan president’s arrest,” and on-chain analysis shows that the address is suspected to be linked to Steven Charles Witkoff, co-founder of WLFI. This indicates that the “profit opportunities” in prediction markets may not be fair to everyone.

Academic Concerns and Regulatory Pressure

Although Polymarket’s weekly trading volume is expected to continue exceeding $1.5 billion in 2026, the platform faces increasing scrutiny. According to reports, U.S. Congressman Richie Torres plans to introduce legislation in 2026 to prevent federal officials and employees from trading on prediction markets using non-public government information.

Bloomberg also pointed out that highly entertainment-oriented or symbolic events like “Will Jesus return in 2025” could undermine the informational value of prediction markets in serious public issues. Academic concerns are valid: if prediction markets turn into gambling arenas, their utility as tools for “predicting the likelihood of real-world events” diminishes.

Summary

The “Will Jesus return in 2025” contract on Polymarket may seem like a peculiar speculative story, but it actually reflects three current realities of prediction markets: first, they have become new venues for speculative capital, attracting millions of dollars even for low-probability events; second, while the returns are attractive, they come with risks such as insider trading; third, regulatory and academic vigilance is increasing. The prosperity of prediction markets continues, but the market is at a turning point of rapid growth and escalating risks.