When reports emerged last weekend that Pope Francis had been hospitalized in critical condition, thousands of people gathered at the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square to pray.
The mood was a bit different on peer-to-peer betting website Polymarket, where bettors had pegged the odds of a new pope before 2026 at 76% (as of 3:45 p.m. US East Coast time on Friday, a few hours after the Vatican reported that Francis’s condition had worsened). The site’s available bets include not only the likelihood of a new pope, but which country the next pope will come from and who it might be. Wagers on “New Pope in 2025?” have generated just over $420,000 on Polymarket as of Friday afternoon.
