Prediction markets
Prediction markets on ships, oil and war: what actually settles them
The headline is not the contract.
Kalshi and Polymarket list markets on Strait of Hormuz traffic, fuel prices, hurricanes and strikes. Each one pays on a named source, a field and a clock, not on the news. This guide sets out what settles each family, read from the venues' own rule text, who decides the outcome, and what you can check before the number lands.
Fact file
What settles physical-world prediction markets
The settlement source behind each market family, from the venues' own rules, read on 9 November 2026. Rules change rarely, but read the market before you trade.
- Chokepoint traffic markets
- IMF PortWatch transit calls
- Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez and Panama, on Kalshi and Polymarket. Ships PortWatch does not report do not count.
- When PortWatch publishes
- Tuesdays, 9 AM Eastern
- Weekly. Kalshi's weekly ship markets settle no earlier than the Tuesday after the week.
- What a PortWatch transit call counts
- Five ship types, from AIS
- Container, dry bulk, general cargo, roll-on/roll-off and tanker. Ships PortWatch does not report do not count.
- US gas and diesel markets
- AAA national average
- Kalshi's daily, weekly and monthly fuel-price markets name gasprices.aaa.com as the source.
- Oil-price markets
- ICE or Pyth prices, per market
- Each market names its feed. Kalshi's 'How high will WTI get' series, for example, names ICE.
- City weather markets
- The Weather Company
- Kalshi's daily city highs and rain markets name The Weather Company as the source, not a weather app.
- Hurricane markets
- NOAA and the NHC
- Kalshi's named-storm and landfall markets settle on NOAA and National Hurricane Center records.
- Strike, ceasefire and blockade markets
- Credible reporting or named outlets
- Polymarket's Iran, Israel and Houthi markets settle on a consensus of credible reporting; Kalshi lists the outlets it will read.
- Ukraine territory markets
- ISW maps
- Polymarket's territory markets settle on the Institute for the Study of War's map shading.
- Who decides on Kalshi
- The exchange, from the named source
- Kalshi settles each market itself, usually within hours of the named source publishing.
- Who decides on Polymarket
- UMA's optimistic oracle
- A proposer posts the outcome with a bond. Anyone can dispute it, and a disputed outcome goes to a vote of UMA token holders.
Sources: Kalshi and Polymarket public market data, rule text and documentation, read 9 November 2026; IMF PortWatch. Aureum is not affiliated with either venue.
Why the headline isn't the contract
A prediction-market contract is a yes or no question that pays $1 if the answer is yes. It trades between 1 and 99 cents, so a price of 37 cents reads as roughly a 37% chance. What decides the payout is not the question's title. It is the rule text underneath: the named source, the field in that source, the comparison, the window and the clock.
Five things to read before you trade
- The source. Which publisher's number counts: IMF PortWatch, AAA, The Weather Company, the National Hurricane Center or a list of news outlets.
- The field. Transit calls, not barrels. The national average, not your local station.
- The comparison. 'Above 60' and 'at or above 60' pay differently when the number lands on 60.
- The window and the clock. The dates counted, and when the venue may settle. Kalshi's weekly ship markets wait until the Tuesday after the week.
- Revisions. Whether a corrected number changes the result, and until when.
Windows catch people out too. PortWatch's Hormuz 7-day average reached 31.9 on 29 June 2026, above the lowest line in Kalshi's 2026-average market, but that market counts only from 6 July. Read the rules on the venue before you trade. This guide quotes them as read on 9 November 2026, and venues can change them.
Who decides the outcome
The rule names the source. Someone still has to read it and declare the result, and the two venues do that very differently.
| Who declares the result | How long it takes | If someone disagrees | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kalshi | The exchange, from the source named in the market's rules | Usually within hours of the source publishing; some rules set a later time | The exchange's rulebook and the contract terms govern. A market is not re-settled because the event seemed over while trading was open |
| Polymarket | On the international site, a proposer who posts the outcome with a bond of about $750 through UMA's optimistic oracle | About two hours if nobody challenges the proposal | A disputed outcome goes to a vote of UMA token holders, which takes days and can end in 'too early' or a 50-50 split |
Disputes are not rare. Bloomberg counted about 2,000 disputed Polymarket contracts in a year, and found that nine wallets had cast about half of UMA's votes on Polymarket outcomes over three years (26 May 2026). On a market that settles on 'credible reporting', the vote is part of the risk. Polymarket's US exchange is a separate, CFTC-regulated venue, and its markets carry their own rules.
The market families, and what settles each
These are the physical-world families with open markets on 9 November 2026. Sports, crypto prices and 'what will he say' markets are left out: satellite pictures and ship traffic have nothing to add to them.
| Settles on | Clock | What Aureum can see | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chokepoint traffic: Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez, Panama | IMF PortWatch transit calls | Weekly, Tuesdays 9 AM Eastern | Ships crossing the Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb gate lines, counted every day, and the latest clear satellite picture of the lanes through Query |
| US gas and diesel prices | AAA national average | Daily | Context only: chokepoint flows and refinery events |
| Oil prices | ICE settlements or Pyth indices, per market | Daily settlement or one-minute candles | Context only |
| City temperatures and rain | The Weather Company | Daily | Nothing useful; weather models do this job |
| Hurricanes | NOAA and the National Hurricane Center | Per advisory | Context only |
| Strikes, ceasefires, blockades | A consensus of credible reporting, or named outlets | When reporting agrees | Satellite pictures and ship traffic that can show an event before the reporting agrees |
| Territory in Ukraine | ISW map shading | Daily map updates | Large fires and burn scars at 10 metres, not front lines |
| Crop yields, oil output, power demand | USDA, EIA and ERCOT releases | Per release | Not covered today |
One thing stands out. Only the chokepoint markets settle on a series that is itself built from ship signals, so a better read of those signals points at the settling number. Everything else settles on prices or reporting, where pictures and ship traffic are early evidence, not the answer.
Ship-count markets and IMF PortWatch
IMF PortWatch publishes a daily count of transit calls for 28 chokepoints, built from satellite-received AIS transponder signals. Kalshi and Polymarket settle their Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez and Panama traffic markets on those counts. The data are updated weekly, on Tuesdays at 9 AM Eastern, so each week's numbers land days after the ships have passed.
| Daily average, 2023 | Daily average, 2025 | Markets that settle on it | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strait of Hormuz | 92.3 | 85.5 | Kalshi: weekly, peak, peak day, 2026 average, return to normal. Polymarket: return to normal, weekly, averages, daily thresholds |
| Bab el-Mandeb | 74.0 | 33.5 | Kalshi: weekly. Polymarket: 'effectively closed', weekly, averages, a zero-ship day |
| Suez Canal | 73.7 | 38.5 | Kalshi: weekly |
| Panama Canal | 30.2 | 31.1 | Kalshi: weekly. Polymarket: 'effectively closed' |
Source: IMF PortWatch daily chokepoint data, downloaded 9 November 2026; markets as listed that day. 2023 came before the Red Sea attacks took hold, and 2025 was the last full year before the Hormuz war. For where each chokepoint stands now, open its PortWatch page.
The full Hormuz rules, the revision policy, what 'normal' meant before the war and a dated snapshot of the latest figures are on how the Hormuz markets settle. How PortWatch builds its counts, where they go wrong and how to pull the data yourself is in IMF PortWatch explained.
Conflict markets: checking a claim before the reporting agrees
Markets on strikes, blockades, ceasefires and island control settle when credible reporting agrees, or when named outlets report it. That can take hours or days, and claims arrive first: a navy says 26 vessels passed, a militia says a tanker was hit, a ministry says a pipeline is burning.
Pin the claim to a place and a time
Name the berth, the lane or the facility, and the hour the claim refers to.
Check the ship traffic
Did transponder traffic through the lane stop, slow or reroute? Ships switch transponders off in a war zone, so silence is not proof.
Check the next clear satellite pass
Smoke, burn scars, oil slicks and missing ships show at 10 metres when the sky is clear. Small damage and people do not.
Check official and local sources
Military statements, shipping advisories such as UKMTO's, and local reporting. Note who gains from the claim.
Read the market's rule again
A true claim can still fail the contract. 'Credible reporting' means the reporting, not the event.
What satellites can and cannot tell you
| Can show | Cannot show | |
|---|---|---|
| Ships | Large hulls in clear water at 10 metres, whether or not they broadcast | Names, cargo, or every small vessel |
| Facilities | Fires, smoke, burn scars, new construction, cleared or flooded ground | Damage smaller than a few pixels, or anything indoors |
| Timing | The time of each pass, to the minute | What happened between passes |
| Gulf of Oman | Sentinel pictures of part of the gulf, released 24 hours late under an EU decision of 13 July 2026 | Same-day pictures of that area |
A picture is evidence for one place at one moment. It rarely settles a market by itself. It tells you, earlier, which way the reporting is likely to go.
Prediction markets on the physical world: questions and answers
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