RFK Jr.’s suspended bid for a White House seat causes chaos on Polymarket

A simple yes or no can still be complicated. The nuances in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s words caused noticeable confusion and wild price swings at Polymarket today after the independent presidential candidate suspended his campaign for the US presidency.

A polymarket bet In total, over $300,000 was bet on whether the scion of the Kennedy dynasty would “drop out on Friday.” The market would answer “yes,” it was said, if Kennedy “officially announced his withdrawal” from the razor-thin election in November.

As Kennedy spoke, those chances dropped to 6% as the candidate insisted Rather than withdrawing from the race completely, Kennedy said he would remove his name from the ballot in swing states like Arizona, which could affect the final outcome of the election.

The steep drop occurred in a matter of minutes because Polymarket traders had calculated a 90 percent chance that Kennedy would pull out shortly before his speech in Arizona on Friday. At one point, that probability rose to 99 percent before plummeting again.

“I’m not ending my campaign, I’m just suspending it,” Kennedy said. “Our polls have consistently shown that if I stay on the ballot in the swing states, I’m likely to hand the election over to Democrats with whom I disagree on the most existential issues.”

As confusion grew, Polymarket traders debated whether to settle the bet and which way. Kennedy’s odds of getting out today, meanwhile, were steadily increasing. However, at the time of writing, the market was trending “no,” pricing in a 41 percent chance that Kennedy would get out.

“What the hell is going on here?” says Polymarket user Donkov askedHe bought and sold stocks, causing Kennedy to exit at least ten times within an hour.

“I’m watching the stream and have no idea what (this) guy is trying to say,” said Polymarket user GreedyMacFear added“So I sold all my ‘NO’s.”

Polymarket is no stranger to controversial results. The platform has survived several this year, including a $680,000 market in Junewhich depended on whether LayerZero, a so-called omnichain interoperability protocol, had actually conducted an airdrop.

This market was contested, and the outcome was left to UMA, a DeFi protocol that uses tokens to resolve disputes. UMA token holders are instructed to vote on which outcome actually occurred, through a process UMA calls its “decentralized truth engine.”

Some Polymarket users published articles from news agencies supporting their bets. Fox News Article For example, one article that was shared stated that Kennedy had “dropped his bid for the White House,” while a Article out of Reuters said Kennedy “gave up his campaign on Friday.”

At the time of writing, the Polymarket contest on Kennedy had not yet been contested. Notably, it had not yet been decided, as the contest was scheduled to end at midnight on Friday.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.