Conclave Markets: The Rise of Leo XIV

Original Publish Date: 5/8/2025

Description: The conclave is over and the prediction markets were dead wrong.

In this episode of History of the Papacy, we dive into the fascinating rise of Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope. Just days before his election, he barely registered in the prediction markets. So how did he win in less than five ballots?

We explore how these markets work, why they usually get things right, and why the conclave is one place where money can’t predict the Holy Spirit.

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Music Provided by:

"Sonatina in C Minor" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

"Funeral March for Brass" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

"Crusade Heavy Perfect Loop" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Agnus Dei X - Bitter Suite Kevin MacLeaod (incomptech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Begin Transcript:

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the History of the Papacy Podcast, a podcast about the Popes of Rome and Christian Church. Prepare yourself to step behind the ropes and leave the official tour of the story of the Popes and Christianity. I am your host, Steve Gura, and I thank you for joining me on this journey.

Hey everybody, it's Steve here. I recorded this episode about, uh, maybe two days ago, and a lot has changed since that recording. We do have a new Pope, Pope Leo the 14th, who was former Cardinal. Robert Prevost, who is the [00:01:00] first American Pope, or who is the first American pope. We'll get into a lot of the details about this future Pope.

We'll probably do an episode on this Cardinal Prevost, where he came from. There's a lot of interest. Details with his life. We probably won't get into a tremendous amount of detail because there's just so much new information coming out about him, but related to this episode that I recorded before, and I think this, this, uh, you should definitely hang on all the way to the end because it's so interesting.

This whole episode was based around the prediction markets around who would be Pope, and I said it in this episode and I've said it many times. Prediction markets are very accurate in some ways, but I think that it was very inaccurate with this current Pope and just it would be inaccurate with Popes in general because it's such a unique election and that the only data points are the [00:02:00] 140 cardinals who go in, or the X amount of Cardinals will say in future conclaves.

And we just don't know what the politics are. We don't a hundred percent know what the politics are going in, and we know. Basically 0% of what political machinations went on in that enclave. It must have been fascinating because of how quickly they came up with him. It was less than five ballots to get Cardinal Privos to become Pope Leo the 14th.

It's one of the shortest conclaves of all times, only two days to get white smoke. So I think that that is fascinating. So definitely keep listening and let's see a little bit of how these markets worked. I'll just say that going in Cardinal Perlin was up. To 67% and Prevost was [00