Betting Odds Iran’s Leader Khamenei Out This Year Skyrocket

Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei will be out by the end of 2025.  That's what the gambling public overwhelmingly believes.

Polymarket's betting market on Khamenei in the wake of Israel's attack on Iran have seen soaring interest in recent days.

$2,850,360 has been wagered on this market since it was released in early December of last year.

The 86-year-old Iranian cleric and politician who has served as the second supreme leader of Iran since 1989.

On Tuesday, Trump dropped several new posts on his Truth Social account about Iran — including making a not-so-veiled threat against Khamenei:

We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured “stuff.” Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.

“We know exactly where the so-called “Supreme Leader” is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!

Israel launched blistering attacks on the heart of Iran’s nuclear and military structure Friday, deploying warplanes and drones previously smuggled into the country to assault key facilities and kill top generals and scientists

Israel asserted the barrage was necessary before its adversary got any closer to building an atomic weapon, although experts and the U.S. government have assessed that Iran was actively working on such a weapon before the strikes.

Iran retaliated by firing waves of ballistic missiles at Israel, where explosions flared in the skies over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and shook the buildings below. The Israeli military urged civilians, already rattled by the earlier wave of missiles, to head to shelter, as missiles damaged homes and killed two people.

Israel has since claimed it has "aerial superiority" over Tehran, Iran's largest city.

The current odds on Polymarket suggest a 61% chance that Khamenei will be “out as Supreme Leader of Iran in 2025,” which Polymarket defines as if he “is removed from power for any length of time between December 28, 2024, and December 31, 2025, 11:59 PM ET.”

Note on Middle East Markets from Polymarket: The promise of prediction markets is to harness the wisdom of the crowd to create accurate, unbiased forecasts for the most important events to society. That ability is particularly invaluable in gut-wrenching times like today. After discussing with those directly affected by the attacks, who had dozens of questions, we realized that prediction markets could give them the answers they needed in ways TV news and Twitter could not.

Note: As with all markets currently displayed on Polymarket, there are no fees on this market.