Gadi Eisenkot trades at about 52 cents to become the next prime minister and Benjamin Netanyahu at 28.5 cents. Final polls show Eisenkot's party ahead but neither bloc with a majority.
Israel's election is on Tuesday. The prediction market tracking it is really betting on what happens in the weeks after.
On Polymarket, the contract on whether Gadi Eisenkot will be the next prime minister of Israel traded at 52.25 cents early Sunday, implying about a 52% chance. Benjamin Netanyahu's contract traded at 28.5 cents, and Naftali Bennett's at about 14.5 cents on Saturday.
The odds have drifted toward Eisenkot over the final days of the campaign. His contract stood at 50.3 cents on Thursday afternoon, while Netanyahu's was at 29.5 cents. The Netanyahu contract carries more money, with about $577,000 of liquidity against about $303,000 for Eisenkot's.
The polls before the blackout
Israeli law bars publishing new polls in the final days before a vote. The last surveys, released on Friday by the country's three main television channels, all showed Eisenkot's Yashar party ahead of Netanyahu's Likud. A final poll in the newspaper Maariv put the opposition bloc at 54 seats and Netanyahu's bloc at 48.
Neither bloc reaches the 61 seats needed for a majority in those polls.
Why the rules matter
The contract does not resolve to the party that wins the most seats. It resolves to "the next individual who is officially appointed and sworn in as Prime Minister of Israel" after the election. A caretaker prime minister does not count. If no one is sworn in by Dec. 31, 2027, it resolves to "Other."
That means the market is pricing coalition-building, not election night. The leader of the largest party is not guaranteed the job, and in a fragmented parliament negotiations can take weeks. Netanyahu's 28.5 cents reflects that possibility as much as his party's vote share.
The overlap with war markets
The same traders are betting on more than one outcome. A research paper published on Oct. 19 by Mitts, Ofir and Zimmerman found that 82% of accounts trading Israeli election contracts also trade markets on an Israel-Iran war. Election results and the course of the conflict are linked in the minds of the people setting these prices.
Two readings
One reading is that Eisenkot's modest lead in the market matches his party's lead in every final poll, and that the contract has room to move sharply once exit polls and seat counts come in.
The other is that a contract priced near 50 cents on a sworn-in basis is mainly a bet on coalition arithmetic, which will not be settled on election night, so the first big move may not be the last.
What to watch
Exit polls when voting closes at 10 p.m. Israel time on Tuesday, the official seat count, the start of coalition talks, and the shekel and Tel Aviv stocks in the days that follow.