The U.S. government is scheduled to partially shut down at midnight, even though the Senate voted in favor of a funding package aimed at keeping the government running, illustrating the importance of the specificity of prediction market contracts.
The House of Representatives is in recess this week and will not resume until Monday. The House still needs to pass the package passed by the Senate Friday night, meaning the government will technically shut down at midnight ET on Saturday and will likely remain shut down through the weekend. This is only a partial closure and does not significantly impact U.S. residents.
As such, this government shutdown is the longest in U.S. history, and is fundamentally different from previous U.S. government shutdowns in which federal workers went without pay for well over a month while lawmakers negotiated future health insurance premium increases.
Polymarket and Calci’s contracts, which allow users to bet on whether or not the government will shut down, have range in how exactly they define a government shutdown, illustrating the importance of specificity in these event contracts.
“If the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announces a further shutdown of the federal government due to appropriation lapses by January 31, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. ET, then this market will be resolved “Yes.” Otherwise, this market will be resolved “no,” one contract reads. Under the terms of this agreement, a partial shutdown qualifies as a shutdown, but importantly relies on OPM announcing the shutdown.
On Friday evening, the party said it had an 88% chance of winning, a steady rise from 40% over the past 24 hours, despite Thursday’s report that the House of Commons would not be able to vote by Monday.
Similar Karshi contracts also point to OPM as a way to verify the outcome of bets. The probability of closure was 93% at press time, up from 44% in the past 24 hours.
OPM’s media relations email did not immediately return a request for comment on whether it would announce a closure.
Other bets were more specific. One Polymarket deal allows users to bet on how long the government will be shut down, with odds of one, two, and three days or more all over 90% at press time. A Kalsi representative suggested bettors placed 90% odds “over (two) days.”
Additionally, another Polymarket contract asking whether government funding will expire on January 31st, with a 99.6% probability as of this writing, defines expiration as “if the President fails to sign the relevant bill extending government funding” by 11:59 p.m. ET on Friday night, which the president cannot sign until the House votes on the package on Monday.
