Every Monday, we pull the five most-traded questions on Kalshi and Polymarket that actually settle during the week, research them properly, and then make a prediction while including all our sources.
Each prediction gets a Geek Score from 0 to 100 depending on our level of certainty. Here’s the board for this week.
The Social Reckoning · Rotten Tomatoes score
Kalshi · Resolves Monday, Oct 12, 10 a.m. ET
Our pick: Above 75
Price at 10:57 a.m. ET: Yes 37c – No 64c
Our call: NO, Geek Score 26
Rotten Tomatoes lists zero reviews for Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook sequel, which opens wide on Friday, and traders have still put about $280,000 into guessing the number. Kalshi’s own forecast on the market page sits at 71.4%, with “Above 70” at 55c and “Above 75” at 37c.
The people who have seen it aren’t raving. World of Reel’s Oct 1 roundup of early press reactions summed up the mood as “rather mid”, expects middling reviews and puts opening-weekend tracking at $4 million to $6 million. A first reaction the same site ran on Sept 23 liked the anger in the script and faulted the direction. Sorkin told Variety the reshoots after the trailer covered two scenes and fixed nothing.
His record as a director is mixed: Molly’s Game finished at 81%, The Trial of the Chicago 7 at 89% and Being the Ricardos at 68%. None of those had to follow a film sitting at 96%, and nearly every early reaction makes that comparison.
The risk: The Tomatometer counts a lukewarm thumbs-up the same as a rave. A critic who files “solid, just no Social Network” still files a fresh review, and two of Sorkin’s three films as director cleared 75. Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White are drawing praise even in the cool reactions. If the first 40 reviews skew fresh, 37c was the bargain and we’ll know by Friday.
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz? (10/5 – 10/11)
Kalshi · Covers Oct 5-11, settles Tuesday, Oct 13 on IMF PortWatch data
Our pick: Above 25
Price at 10:57 a.m. ET: Yes 41c – No 62c
Our call: NO, Geek Score 22
Twenty-six ships in seven days is the bar. Before the war the strait handled about 85 transits a day, according to the Oct 1 brief from straits.live. The leg has shed 19 points since it listed, and at 41c to buy Yes the crowd still gives it better than one chance in three.
Last week’s version of this contract shows where the count has been running. With most of that week’s data already in, “Above 20” traded at 88% and “Above 25” at 43% on Kalshi’s politics page, which puts the running total in the low-to-mid 20s. Clearing 25 this week requires traffic to improve, and the news points the other way. Three vessels were reported struck in the strait around Oct 1, with further tanker attacks surfacing through delayed UK Maritime Trade Operations reports, per the same straits.live brief. The tracker described the waterway as effectively closed to commercial shipping on Oct 4. Windward counted 55 AIS-visible transits over Sept 16-23, about 94% below pre-war traffic.
The risk: PortWatch and AIS trackers don’t count the same way, and Windward’s 55 in eight days is already close to a 48-a-week pace on its own method. The reporting that logged the strikes also described Iran’s control over traffic as loosening. One escorted convoy late in the week could add six or eight transits and carry the total through 25. Settlement lags too: Kalshi doesn’t close this until Oct 13.
BTC price on Friday at 5pm EDT?
Kalshi · Resolves Friday, Oct 9, 5 p.m. ET
Our pick: $86,000 or above
Price at 10:05 a.m. ET: Yes 41c – No 60c
Our call: NO, Geek Score 28
Bitcoin opened Monday at $86,513 after a soft September jobs report cooled talk of another Fed hike this month, Yahoo Finance reported. Then it slipped, and CoinGecko had it near $85,256 when we read the board. Kalshi’s ladder is centered right there: $85,000 at 54c, $85,500 at 48c, $86,000 at 41c.
The rally has stalled under the same ceiling twice. Friday’s push topped out at $87,177 and Sunday’s at $86,770, according to 99Bitcoins, and FXStreet puts resistance just under $88,000. The fuel is thinner as well. Spot ETF net inflows fell to $82.9 million for Sept 28 to Oct 2, after about $2.4 billion the week before. Oil near $100 a barrel and rising Treasury yields make a poor backdrop for a breakout.
The risk: This is the thinnest call on the board. Bitcoin sat about $750 below the strike with four days to go, and it moves that much on an ordinary afternoon. One strong ETF inflow day, or a ceasefire headline that knocks oil down, carries it over $86,000. Two failed breakouts justify a lean. They don’t justify much confidence, and the score overstates ours.
Peak traffic through the Strait of Hormuz? (10/5 – 10/11)
Kalshi · Covers Oct 5-11, settles Tuesday, Oct 13 on IMF PortWatch data
Our pick: Above 6
Price at 10:57 a.m. ET: Yes 59c – No 49c
Our call: NO, Geek Score 33
A companion to the weekly count, this one asks whether any single day this week logs seven or more transits. Volume is tiny, about $4,300 at capture, and the 8-cent overlap between the two sides shows it.
The case is arithmetic, and it’s ours. If the week totals 23 to 25 transits, which is where last week’s contract was pricing the count, the daily average is 3.3 to 3.6. Treat daily counts as roughly random around that average (a simple Poisson model) and the chance that at least one of seven days reaches seven comes out between 31% and 41%. The market says 59%. Last week’s “Above 6” leg traded at 42% and “Above 4” at 96% on Kalshi, so recent peaks have been landing at five or six.
The risk: Ships don’t arrive at random. They cross in clusters when an escort or a safe-passage deal opens a window, and clustering is what produces a seven-ship day inside a quiet week. Our model understates that. This call also rests on the same facts as the weekly count above, so if a convoy runs, both lose together.
How many days will Trump be photographed this week? (10/5-10/11)
Kalshi · Covers Oct 5-11, settles Monday, Oct 12, 10 a.m. ET
Our pick: 7
Price at 10:05 a.m. ET: Yes 55c – No 54c
Our call: YES, Geek Score 72
Kalshi settles this one on Getty Images. Under the contract rules, a day counts if Getty carries a tagged editorial photo of the president from that date. The “7” leg is a coin flip with a wide spread, 55c to buy Yes and 54c to buy No, on under $20,000 of volume.
The calendar is the argument. Election Day is Nov 3, four weeks out, and a president defending a House majority has every reason to be in front of cameras daily. The base rate helps. A research note from Octagon counted three days without new wire photos in the 30 days from March 27 to April 25, a 10% miss rate, and all three fell inside one five-day stretch.
The risk: One empty Saturday sinks it. Earlier versions of this market, which asked for a photo every day, were trading at 3% and 1% late in the weeks of April 26 and June 1, so blank days happen. A 10% daily miss rate compounds to roughly a coin flip across seven days, which is what the market is saying. We’re betting campaign season beats the base rate, and that is a judgment call.
Scorecard
| # | Market | Platform | Resolves | Our pick | Our call | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Social Reckoning · Rotten Tomatoes score | Kalshi | Mon, Oct 12 | Above 75 | NO | 26 |
| 2 | Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz? (10/5 – 10/11) | Kalshi | Sun, Oct 11 (settles Oct 13) | Above 25 | NO | 22 |
| 3 | BTC price on Friday at 5pm EDT? | Kalshi | Fri, Oct 9 | $86,000 or above | NO | 28 |
| 4 | Peak traffic through the Strait of Hormuz? (10/5 – 10/11) | Kalshi | Sun, Oct 11 (settles Oct 13) | Above 6 | NO | 33 |
| 5 | How many days will Trump be photographed this week? (10/5-10/11) | Kalshi | Sun, Oct 11 (settles Oct 12) | 7 | YES | 72 |
All prices as of Monday, Oct 5, between 10:05 and 10:57 a.m. ET. Markets move, and some contracts reset their base intraday, so check the live price before trading.
The board sits furthest from the crowd on the Hormuz peak leg, where seven-day arithmetic lands 26 points under a price set by about $4,300 of trading.
Prediction markets carry real risk of loss. Nothing here is financial advice, it’s our read on the evidence. Trade responsibly, and if it stops being fun, the National Council on Problem Gambling is at 1-800-GAMBLER.
