Who Will be the Next Pope?

The Smoke Filled Room's weighted average of betting markets for the Papal Conclave of the 267th Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church

Final Update

Habemus Papam! We have a Pope! Cardinal Prevost, who’s odds stood at only .7% has been elected Pope Leo XIV. Thus, continuing the trend of the Papacy being incredibly difficult to predict as bettors completely missed the mark. [Also, this page is now formally affiliated with The New Pope Project, which you can check out to see other predictive metrics that were used the conclave.]
- Thursday, May 8th at 2:30pm.

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There are currently 252 cardinals, although only 135 are allowed to vote in the Conclave. Here’s how the odds of those with a greater than 1% chance of being elected have changed over time.

For more detail on how the lesser known cardinals are fairing according to bettors, here’s a detailed breakdown of ever cardinal who currently has betting odds.

How Accurate are Bettors?

Betting on Papal Conclaves is far from a new phenomenon. In fact there is data going back to 1503 on what the betting odds were for various conclaves. In 1591 Pope Gregory XVI issued a ban on betting on the outcome of a papal election, threatening excommunication to any who violated the order. This command seemed to completely end the practice until the 1917 Code of Canon Law effectively repealed Gregory’s order. Ever since, their has officially been nothing preventing Catholics from betting on the conclave.

Betting odds are hardly predictive of the outcome. The Cardinal favored to be the next Pope has only been elected on three out of ten occasions. On just as many occasions, candidates who’s betting odds were quite literally zero were elected. That is to say, there is just as high a likelihood that one of the favorites is elected the next pope as there is that an absolutely nobody is elected. The betting odds definitely give an insight into public opinion, but it’s really hard to say that it is predictive in any way of the actual outcome of the conclave.

Weighting Methodology

Market prices from the betting sites Polymarket, Smarkets, and Kalshi are recorded at 11:59pm. These prices are treated as percentages and are averaged. Each market is given a weight in the average that is the equal to the logarithm of their current market cap. If a Cardinal appears in one market but not another, their odds are treated as being zero in the market in which their name is not listed. The average is then adjusted so the sum of all odds is equal to 100%.