The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on October 9 the award of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay. However, on Polymarket, where punters had pledged more than $32 million, his name did not even appear among the proposed candidates.
In brief
- Navi Pillay wins the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize without appearing among the 70 names proposed on Polymarket.
- His name appears after the official announcement on the “other winner” contract, which totals only $38,770 in exchanges.
- Yulia Navalnaya briefly reached 70.6 cents before seeing her chances collapse. At Kalshi, the 50 proposed candidates also missed out on the winner.
A Nobel that Polymarket had not anticipated
In October 2025, the surge in Maria Corina Machado’s ratings, a few hours before the official announcement, raised suspicions of a leak and led the Norwegian authorities to open an investigation. This year, the problem is different: the punters simply did not consider the name of the winner.
The Nobel committee awarded Navi Pillay, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former judge at the International Criminal Court, for his efforts in favor of peace and international law.
However, on Polymarket, the market dedicated to the Nobel Peace Prize has recorded $32.3 million in exchanges since October 2025without proposing Navi Pillay among its 70 candidates. Result: none of these contracts rewarded the bettors.
Donald Trump attracted the largest volume of bets, with $7.96 million. The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees followed with 2.1 million, ahead of Yulia Navalnaya and her 1.99 million.
The winner only emerged after the announcement, when Polymarket renamed the contract “other person or organization.” This only shows $38,770 in trade, or around 0.12% of the total volume.
Yulia Navalnaya, the hope of a few hours
The day before the announcement, Yulia Navalnaya’s ratings experienced a strong surge. Thursday evening, his contract was around 5 cents. Then, starting at 11:30 p.m. UTC, buyers pushed it to 54 cents in thirty minutes, before peaking at 70.6 cents at 12:02 a.m. Friday.
The rise did not last. A few minutes later, the odds fell back below 20 cents, then hovered between 20 and 30 cents until the official announcement at 9:00 UTC. They then dropped to zero.
This mishap illustrates the risks of these platforms. At the beginning of October, a Galaxy study estimated that 69.2% of individual accounts on Polymarket end up below their break-even point, with $338.9 million in cumulative losses.
Markets limited by their own choices
The problem goes beyond the Nobel Peace Prize. On Polymarket, the markets dedicated to chemistry and physics prizes also failed, because the winners, Henri Kagan, Kenso Soai and Francis Halzen, were not included in the proposed lists. Kalshi, however, identified two winners, Anne Carson in literature and Karl Deisseroth in medicine.
The next test is the economy price, expected to be announced Monday. Polymarket raised about $69,300 from 17 candidates, with Ariel Pakes leading at 22.5%.
Faced with the $68 billion in sports and combined contracts traded in one month this fall, these markets remain modest. But the episode highlights an essential limitation: even when thousands of people bet on an outcome, their predictions first depend on the choices of the platform.
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