Vatican Hoax Sends Polymarket’s Pope Bets Soaring to $6.4 Million – You Won’t Believe This

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Polymarket’s next Pope prediction market just hit a whopping $6.4 million in bets today, all thanks to a viral hoax suggesting the Catholic Church was about to excommunicate gamblers.

The post, which can only be described as “slightly off-brand for the Vatican,” was spread on X by an account boasting over 240,000 followers, mimicking what was almost an official Church statement. Almost, but not quite. More on that in a minute.

Polymarket’s Pope Predictions: The Holy Grail of Betting?

The fake announcement, which is certainly not going to get a papal blessing, accused platforms like Polymarket of turning the sacred papal election into a “speculative exercise” and urged the faithful to treat the Conclave as something deeply spiritual, not something that could make you a small fortune in the next few weeks. 🙄

Of course, the post was promptly debunked. It wasn’t exactly “Church-approved” material: there were no capitalized terms like “Conclave” or “Papal Election,” and, bizarrely enough, Polymarket was mentioned directly—a detail the Vatican would be far too busy to include. So, yeah, not exactly the work of the Holy See.

While the whole thing was a hoax, it inadvertently leaked some very rare Polymarket data. One screenshot from the fake post revealed that the total wagers on the papal successor were sitting at $2.5 million as of April 21. Well, you can guess what happened next—those numbers more than doubled. 📈

Polymarket kicked off the “Next Pope” market in February, long before Pope Francis passed earlier this week, as the world started whispering about who would take the throne (not literally, mind you; let’s keep it respectful).

“The Holy See deplores the reduction of the solemn conclave to a mere speculative exercise on platforms such as Polymarket and urges the faithful to uphold the dignity of the papal election as a matter of prayerful discernment rather than profit,” read the fake announcement published by the notorious X user Yoxic. Who knew “Yoxic” could sound so holy?

Since the Conclave convened, trading volume has shot up like a rocket on steroids. In just three days, bets on who will be the next Pope have soared by nearly 160%. If this is what the Church calls “spiritual growth,” we might be in trouble.

The Catholic Church has, so far, shown little interest in the world of crypto. Apart from the occasional Bitcoin donation from a U.S. archdiocese (which, let’s be honest, sounds more like a very niche charity event), there’s no sign that the Church has been paying attention to Polymarket—especially during such a momentous occasion as selecting a new Pope. But hey, stranger things have happened, right? 👀

Yet, here we are, with the spike in betting showing us how religion and decentralized speculation are, apparently, just one tweet away from crossing paths. As of today, the “Next Pope” market has turned into one of the most active bets on Polymarket. Who knew divine intervention could be so lucrative?

It’s clear that Polymarket’s betting boom is part of a larger trend where crypto-native platforms have become the wild, speculative frontier for politics, culture, and now religion. Who’s next? A market for the next big cat meme? 💸

While the Catholic Church isn’t likely to start taking calls from Web3 anytime soon, the fact that betting on papal elections has become this intense shows how digital markets are increasingly reflecting—and amplifying—the passions of public discourse. Amen to that.

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2025-04-24 23:45