Trump’s first State of the Union address on Tuesday evening was among his most dramatic performances. A Democratic member of the House, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), was escorted out at the beginning of the speech, family members of fallen Americans were honored, and a 13-year-old boy was sworn in as an honorary Secret Service agent.
The drama extended to mention markets on top prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, where users bet money on what Trump would say during his address to the joint session of Congress. Trump said certain words and phrases that were expected, like “drill baby drill” and “make America healthy again,” but he failed to mention others, like “AI / artificial intelligence” and “ceasefire.”
Kalshi also passed an important milestone. Its trading volume after the speech was about $11.9 million, nearly doubling Polymarket’s mention market for the same event, which generated only $6.1 million in trade volume.
Polymarket was founded in 2020 and officially left the American market in 2022, but began offering sports and election markets at least three years before Kalshi could. Kalshi decisively beating its unregulated global competitor in a major event market is a big milestone for the CFTC-regulated platform, which added Donald Trump Jr. as an advisor earlier this year
In any case, prediction market traders got their money’s worth Tuesday night. Here are some of the biggest winners and losers of the night on Kalshi.
Biggest SOTU wins and losses
The State of the Union’s non-public information gives prediction market prices a chance to settle in surprising ways. The words with about 80-cent price movements included:
- Greenland – 20 cents to YES
- Pam / Bondi – 20 cents to YES
- Kamala – 20 cents to YES
- Mandate 3+ Times – 26 cents to YES
- AI / Artificial Intelligence 79 cents to NO
- Ceasefire – 79 cents to NO
Trump mentioned Greenland, Kamala Harris, and his attorney general, Pam Bondi, in off-the-cuff moments throughout his speech. He also managed to say “mandate” three times. Two of those instances were about the magnitude of his 2024 electoral college victory and one was about Biden’s electric vehicle mandate. The “mandate” market had a spike in “No” prices due to confusion about whether Trump said mandate three times. However, all three mentions were sufficient to settle the “mandate” market to Yes.
There were also some betting upsets when it came to the words Trump avoided. Trump didn’t mention AI or artificial intelligence, which is an emerging issue in the United States. He also managed to discuss Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza as he discussed hopes for peace without mentioning the word “ceasefire.”
We’ve also listed the full SOTU mention market settlements below:
| Settled to Yes | Settled to No |
| Pam / Bondi | Hell |
| America First | TikTok |
| Volodymyr / Zelenskyy | Ivanka |
| God 4+ Times | Epstein |
| Vladimir / Putin | McDonald |
| Ukraine | Crypto / Bitcoin |
| DOGE / Department of Government Efficiency | Doge / Dogecoin |
| Israel | MAGA / Make America Great Again 4+ Times |
| Illegal Immigrant / Immigration | Rig / Rigged |
| Greenland | Trans |
| Drill Baby Drill | Carnage |
| Mexico | Middle Class |
| Canada | Ceasefire |
| Kamala | January Six / January Sixth |
| Border 5+ Times | Sam Altman |
| America 15+ Times | AI / Artificial Intelligence |
| Elon / Elon Musk | |
| Biden | |
| Panama | |
| Make America Healthy Again | |
| Gaza | |
| Mandate 3+ Times | |
| LA / Los Angeles | |
| Russia |
