Down in Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated Flávio Bolsonaro in a runoff election on Sunday to be re-elected as president, in a comeback that literally defied the odds — at least as they’d been set by buzzy prediction markets.
Though platforms like Polymarket frame themselves as prognosticators of the future by drawing on the “wisdom of the crowd,” they were horrendously off the mark when it came to Brazil’s extremely consequential election.
After the first round of voting on October 4, the Polymarket odds that Flávio Bolsonaro — the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently serving a 27 year sentence for leading a coup attempt — would win the election surged to over 80 percent, while Luna’s chances of winning bottomed out at a dismal 12 percent.
The extremely favorable odds for Bolsonaro held for over a week — up until the very day that the second round of voting was held. That Sunday morning, Polymarket odds showed Bolsonaro having an 81 percent chance of winning.
