Updated August 22, 2026 · 23 min read · by Sam Smith
Kalshi has listed eight answers to the question of which place becomes the 51st state, and traders have moved more than 1.7 million contracts across them. The name sitting on top is not the one that has dominated two years of headlines. It is not Greenland, and it is not Canada. It is Cuba, at three cents bid and four cents ask, and the eight AI models we asked to price the same board without seeing a single quote dropped Cuba to fourth.
The Quick Answer
The market says there is roughly a one-in-eight chance any 51st state is admitted before January 20, 2029, and it ranks Cuba as the most likely candidate. An eight-model AI panel, shown the contract's binding settlement language and the full congressional record but never the prices, puts the odds of any admission lower still, and reorders the field entirely: Puerto Rico first, Greenland second, Cuba fourth. The reason for the reshuffle sits in a document neither headline writers nor traders seem to read.
That document is Kalshi's own contract terms, and it changes what this market is actually about. Below is the full board, every model's number, the eight bills currently sitting in Congress, and the four developments that would move the panel.
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What The Contract Actually Requires
Most coverage of this market treats it as a question about conquest, purchase, or diplomacy. The contract disagrees. Kalshi's STATE51 contract terms define the underlying as "admissions of a new state by the United States Congress," and the payout criterion is narrower still: the contract pays only if "the United States Congress has admitted a state to the union after Issuance and before" the deadline, "whose territory is" the named place, "as the 51st state."
Read that twice. The President cannot settle this contract on his own. Neither can a treaty, and neither can a referendum. Only an Act of Congress can, passed by both chambers and enacted into law, before January 20, 2029. The exchange names the Library of Congress and reporting by the Wall Street Journal as its source agency, which is another way of saying the settlement gets read out of the congressional record.
That distinction is not academic, and the market itself demonstrates it. Kalshi runs a separate contract on whether the United States acquires any part of Greenland before January 21, 2029. That one trades at 23¢ bid, 25¢ ask. The contract on Greenland becoming the 51st state reads "If the 51st state is any part of Greenland before Jan 20, 2029, then the market resolves to Yes." Same island, same "any part" wording, a deadline one day earlier. It trades at 1.4¢ bid, 1.9¢ ask. Traders are pricing the gap between owning a place and admitting it as a state at roughly 22 points, a ratio of about fifteen to one. They are right to. Puerto Rico and Guam have both been under United States sovereignty since 1899, and neither is a state.
Where The Prices Are Right Now
All eight contracts expire January 20, 2029, and each closes early if its outcome occurs. Prices below were fetched August 22, 2026. Every one of these is a thin book. Quotes come back to a tenth of a cent, and the gap between the best offer to buy and the best offer to sell runs from a tenth of a cent on Guam, Colombia and the District of Columbia to a full cent on Cuba. On a contract priced under five cents, that gap is a large fraction of the position, which is why both sides of every quote are shown here rather than a single last-traded price.
The board above shows the top of the ladder at each contract's best bid, which is the highest price anyone is currently offering to pay. All eight, with the ask beside each bid, are in the table below.
| Candidate | Bid | Ask | Lifetime contracts | Open interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cuba | 3.0¢ | 4.0¢ | 235,088 | 104,826 |
| Venezuela | 2.7¢ | 2.9¢ | 384,682 | 100,514 |
| Puerto Rico | 1.5¢ | 1.8¢ | 200,876 | 74,424 |
| Greenland | 1.4¢ | 1.9¢ | 420,693 | 146,987 |
| Canada | 1.1¢ | 1.4¢ | 192,405 | 85,579 |
| Guam | 0.9¢ | 1.0¢ | 81,342 | 56,711 |
| Colombia | 0.5¢ | 0.6¢ | 93,357 | 65,931 |
| District Of Columbia | 0.4¢ | 0.5¢ | 99,860 | 54,998 |
Lifetime volume only ever grows, so open interest sits beside it. Both columns count contracts, not dollars. Greenland has traded the most over its life and still carries the most live exposure, roughly 147,000 contracts still open. Add the midpoints of all eight and you get 12.8 cents, which is the market's way of saying there is about an 87% chance nobody is admitted at all.
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The Board
The panel saw the settlement language, the full admission ledger back to 1959, every relevant bill in the current Congress with its exact procedural stage, and dated event context for all eight candidates. It never saw a price. Each model distributed 100 points across the eight names plus "no state admitted," in one pass, so the numbers could not contradict each other.
| Candidate | What it would take | Market | Panel blend |
|---|---|---|---|
| No 51st State Admitted | Nothing. This is the default. | 87.2¢ (Derived) | 94.3% |
| Puerto Rico | One Act of Congress. No foreign consent needed. | 1.65¢ | 2.5% |
| Greenland | Danish and Greenlandic consent, then an Act of Congress. | 1.65¢ | 1.5% |
| District Of Columbia | One Act of Congress, against a hostile majority. | 0.45¢ | 0.5% |
| Cuba | Regime change, a request to join, then an Act of Congress. | 3.5¢ | 0.35% |
| Venezuela | Same two-step, against stated US policy. | 2.8¢ | 0.3% |
| Canada | Consent from a G7 government that has refused. | 1.25¢ | 0.2% |
| Guam | A 2026 vote, a 2028 plebiscite, then Congress. | 0.95¢ | 0.1% |
| Colombia | No proposal exists in any record. | 0.55¢ | under 0.1% |
Market column is the midpoint of the bid and the ask. Kalshi lists no contract on nothing happening, so the top row's market figure is derived: 100 minus the eight midpoints. Panel column is the median of the eight seats for each row, so the column sums to about 99.8 rather than exactly 100; each individual model's board sums to 100.
The row that matters most is the top one. Both sides of this board agree on the headline: almost certainly nobody. The argument is about everything underneath it.
Every Seat's Number
| Candidate | Fable | Opus | Sonnet | GPT | Gemini | GLM | Kimi | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No 51st State | 94.5% | 93.6% | 95.5% | 94.0% | 95.0% | 94.0% | 95.0% | 93.2% |
| Puerto Rico | 2.5% | 2.5% | 2.0% | 2.5% | 2.5% | 3.0% | 2.0% | 3.5% |
| Greenland | 1.4% | 1.6% | 1.3% | 1.7% | 1.5% | 1.5% | 1.5% | 1.5% |
| District Of Columbia | 0.5% | 0.7% | 0.5% | 0.7% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.8% |
| Cuba | 0.4% | 0.5% | 0.3% | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.4% |
| Venezuela | 0.3% | 0.5% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 0.3% |
| Canada | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% |
| Guam | 0.1% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% |
| Colombia | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.1% | 0.0% |
Numbers are rounded to a tenth of a point. Four seats put Colombia at a literal zero; on a board like this a zero means the seat could not find a path in the record it was given, not that one is ruled out.
Every seat on this panel is graded against real market settlements — records to date: Claude Fable 82% on 576 graded calls · Claude Opus 83% on 646 graded calls · Claude Sonnet 82% on 624 graded calls · GPT 84% on 5,658 graded calls · Gemini 86% on 4,423 graded calls · GLM 81% on 2,437 graded calls · Kimi 82% on 2,414 graded calls · DeepSeek 80% on 2,462 graded calls. Recomputed daily; the full scoreboard is public.
These are model-generated estimates for information and entertainment, not financial advice. Markets move, and you are responsible for your own decisions. Every number in this piece gets graded in public once the market settles, on the full graded scoreboard.
More live boards from the same panel: Does the US acquire any part of Greenland at 24¢ · Who leads Venezuela on December 31, where acting president Delcy Rodríguez sits at 17¢ · The 2026 midterm board, where a Democratic sweep of both chambers trades at 46¢. Prices fetched August 22, 2026.
The Market Card
| Venue | Kalshi — a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange (18+; availability varies by state and can change, as of August 2026) |
| Event Ticker | KXSTATE51-29 |
| The Contract | Eight mutually exclusive contracts. One resolves YES only if Congress admits that place as the 51st state before January 20, 2029. |
| Settlement Source | The Library of Congress and reporting by the Wall Street Journal, both named in Kalshi's STATE51 contract terms |
| Quirk Worth Knowing | Revisions to the underlying record made after expiration do not count. Each contract closes early if its outcome occurs. |
| Fees And Spread | The published contract terms set a minimum tick of $0.01 and position accountability at $25,000 per strike per member. On these sub-5¢ contracts the live quote feed returns prices to a tenth of a cent, so the published terms and the feed disagree on granularity; every price on this page is the feed's. Spreads run from 0.1¢ on the cheapest three to 1.0¢ on Cuba, so the round trip is expensive relative to the position. |
Prices above are a dated snapshot as of August 22, 2026, not a live ticker. This board is re-scored and re-stamped when the story moves, so check the date before relying on it.
Why 1959 Is The Number That Governs This Board
Alaska was admitted January 3, 1959. Hawaii followed on August 21, 1959. Nothing has been admitted since. Sixteen complete four-year presidential terms have begun and ended in that stretch, and the current one is the seventeenth.
The panel treated that drought as a starting point rather than a verdict, because 1959 itself shows the mechanism that breaks a drought. Alaska and Hawaii came in as a pair, and the pairing was the political solution: each party expected to gain, so neither had a reason to block. Every seat was instructed to check whether an equivalent arrangement exists today.
None found one. What they found instead was a legislative ledger that has not moved an inch. Here is every bill in the 119th Congress that would create a 51st state, block one, or set up a path to one, with its stage as of August 2026. Two of the eight, H.R. 7013 and H.R. 7192, are Democratic measures written to stop a Greenland annexation rather than to advance one; they are stuck at exactly the same stage as the bills they oppose.
| Bill | Sponsor | Introduced | Stage |
|---|---|---|---|
| H.R. 7012, Greenland Annexation And Statehood Act | Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) | Jan 12, 2026 | Introduced |
| H.R. 7013, Greenland Sovereignty Protection Act | Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) | Jan 12, 2026 | Introduced |
| H.R. 7192, Hands Off Greenland Act | Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) | Jan 21, 2026 | Introduced |
| H.R. 361, Make Greenland Great Again Act | Rep. Andrew Ogles (R-TN) | Jan 13, 2025 | Introduced |
| H.R. 1161, Red, White, And Blueland Act Of 2025 | Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) | Feb 10, 2025 | Introduced |
| H.R. 51, Washington, D.C. Admission Act | Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) | Jan 3, 2025 | Introduced |
| S. 51, Washington, D.C. Admission Act | Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) | Jan 9, 2025 | Introduced |
| H.R. 9246, Puerto Rico Democratic Self Determination Act | Resident Commissioner Pablo José Hernández Rivera (D-PR) | Jun 10, 2026 | Introduced |
"Introduced" is the first stage of the legislative process. A bill is referred to committee and waits. Not one of these eight has been reported out of committee, which is the ordinary route to a floor vote. The oldest has been waiting nineteen months.
Take the D.C. bills as the clearest case. H.R. 51 was filed on the opening day of this Congress and has not moved since. The House has passed a D.C. Admission Act twice in its history, most recently 216-208, and it died in the Senate both times. Meanwhile the measure on D.C. that this Congress actually passed was the Make the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful Act, which sets up a commission to advise on criminal and immigration matters in the District. Per Rep. Norton's office, Republicans have filed more than 100 bills, amendments and riders this Congress to repeal, amend or block D.C. from carrying out its own local laws. The one D.C. bill with momentum is moving in the opposite direction from statehood.
Greenland: The Loudest Campaign On The Board Is Not The Priciest
Greenland has traded the most contracts of anything here, and it is the one candidate with a genuine Republican annexation bill attached to it. It is also the candidate whose price chart best explains what this market rewards.
The record is documented and it is not gentle. In mid-January 2026, President Trump threatened 10% tariffs on eight European nations beginning February 1, rising to 25% by June 1, unless Denmark ceded Greenland, and he repeatedly declined to rule out military force. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration was weighing a range of options and that "utilizing the U.S. military is always an option". On January 19 and 20 the President said there was "no going back" and that he would take Greenland "the hard way" if he had to. Denmark is a NATO ally, and European officials said openly that using force against one would put the alliance's mutual defense commitment in question.
The backlash was measurable. On January 17, 2026, Hands Off Greenland protests drew roughly 20,000 people in Copenhagen, 5,000 in Aarhus, and 4,000 in Nuuk, a quarter of that city's population and the largest demonstration in Greenland's history. Marchers carried signs reading "Greenland is not for sale" and wore red hats parodying the President's own, printed with "Make America Go Away." Four days later, on January 21 at Davos, he took the military option off the table, withdrew the tariff threats, and announced a "framework" with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Danish and Greenlandic officials rejected any sovereignty compromise immediately and said the framework referred to pre-existing 1951 treaty commitments. Six days later a House resolution appeared honoring the President for "securing a historic strategic agreement establishing permanent United States sovereignty and control over critical military installations in Greenland." Military installations, not the island.
Watch what the contract did. Greenland closed at 13¢ on December 24, 2025, its highest print ever, and held between 8¢ and 12¢ through the peak of the crisis. In the week after Davos it fell to 3¢. It has never recovered. A second, smaller spike came on June 2, 2026, when the President's own June 1 purchase deadline arrived: the contract jumped from 4.1¢ to 8.4¢ in a day, then gave it all back within a week when the deadline passed with no deal. On June 3 Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a House hearing that Greenland remains part of Denmark "for now". The President repeated at the NATO summit in Ankara on July 7 that the United States should control the island; Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen answered that it is well known Washington wants it and she hoped it was equally well known "that this is not going to happen."
The panel priced Greenland second at 1.5%, and every seat gave roughly the same reason. It has the most political energy behind it and the loosest settlement language on the board, since "any part" of Greenland would do. It also needs two improbable things stacked on top of each other. Denmark and Greenland have refused on the record repeatedly, most recently on July 7, 2026, and a Verian survey for Berlingske and Sermitsiaq found 85% of Greenlanders do not want to leave the Danish Realm for the United States, against 6% who do. That poll's fieldwork ran January 22 to 26, 2025 and is now nineteen months old; a search for a 2026 replacement turned up only re-reports of the same numbers, so treat it as the most recent read available rather than a current one. On the American side the numbers are fresher and point the same way: Pew, surveying 8,512 adults January 20 to 26, 2026, found 58% opposed to a takeover and 21% in favor, with Republicans and Republican-leaners split 41-33.
Cuba: The Market's Favorite Has No Bill Behind It
Cuba is the most expensive name on this board and the newest. It was listed on May 13, 2026, in the middle of the sharpest stretch of the crisis, and after a first ten days that swung between 1¢ and 6¢ it has held between 3¢ and 6¢ every day since May 22.
The pressure campaign is real and documented. On January 29, 2026 the President signed Executive Order 14380 declaring a national emergency and authorizing tariffs on countries supplying oil to Cuba. In February the United States began blocking oil tankers bound for the island. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel confirmed talks on March 13 and Cuba released 51 political prisoners, then more than 2,000 on April 3. On May 14 Cuba's Energy Ministry warned the country had exhausted its oil and diesel. On May 21 the Justice Department announced a superseding indictment charging former leader Raúl Castro and five co-defendants over the February 1996 shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue planes: one count of conspiracy to kill US nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destruction of aircraft, returned April 23 and unsealed May 20. Leaving the White House on February 27, the President said of Cuba: "The Cuban government is talking with us. They have no money. They have no anything right now. We could very well end up having a friendly takeover of Cuba." This month Díaz-Canel accused Washington of waging "psychological warfare" and said Cuba is living through its most dangerous period since the October Crisis, with blackouts running past twenty hours a day in places.
The Cuba gap in one line: every documented step of the campaign is about who governs Cuba. The contract pays on who admits Cuba. No member of either chamber has filed the bill that connects them.
All of that is a regime-pressure story. None of it is an admission story. A search of the 119th Congress returns no Cuba statehood bill and no Cuba annexation bill. The panel priced Cuba fourth at 0.35%, roughly a tenth of what traders pay, and the gap comes down to one question no seat could answer: who introduces the bill, and when.
That is the single largest disagreement on this board, and it is worth being precise about its size. Three and a half cents against a third of a percent is a ten-to-one difference on a contract where the round trip already costs a cent. The panel is not arguing that Cuba is quiet. It is arguing that a crisis without a legislative vehicle cannot settle this particular contract.
Puerto Rico: The Only One That Has Already Voted For It
Every model ranked Puerto Rico first, and every model gave the same structural reason. Three candidates on this board are already American ground and need the admission step alone rather than acquisition followed by admission: Puerto Rico, Guam and the District of Columbia. Of those three, only Puerto Rico has recently voted for statehood, and only Puerto Rico is neither running a multi-year plebiscite clock nor facing a Congress actively legislating the other way.
It also has the strongest democratic mandate of anything here. In the November 5, 2024 status referendum, statehood took 58.61% of valid votes against 29.57% for free association and 11.82% for independence, on 63.58% turnout. The referendum was non-binding, and Congress retains complete discretion over whether to act on it. Nearly two years later, it has not. The Puerto Rico Status Act, which would have made a plebiscite binding and required the President to proclaim admission within a year of a statehood majority, passed the House 233-191 in December 2022 and died in the Senate. No bill by that name appears in the 119th Congress. The one Puerto Rico status bill that does, H.R. 9246, is a self-determination bill with no Senate companion, filed in June 2026 and still in committee.
The historical shape argues the same way. Of the 50 states, 31 were once organized incorporated territories before admission. Puerto Rico's designation is unincorporated, and it has been a United States territory since 1899. Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia are the only two candidates the panel prices above the market rather than below it, and Puerto Rico's is by far the larger of the two gaps, a little under a cent.
Dark Horses The Panel Won't Dismiss
Guam, at 0.95¢. The one candidate boxed in by its own calendar rather than by politics. Guam is an unincorporated organized territory under the Organic Act of 1950, and its own status process is a vote proposed for November 2026 asking a single question: should Guam hold a political status plebiscite in 2028? A yes there produces a 2028 referendum offering statehood, independence or free association, which would leave Congress a matter of weeks to act before this contract expires. Sonnet called it "structurally time-locked out." No seat took it to zero, but none went above 0.3% either.
The District of Columbia, at 0.45¢. Third on the panel's board despite having the simplest mechanism of any candidate, because mechanism and politics point opposite ways. DeepSeek was the most generous at 0.8%, on the grounds that bills exist in both chambers and the House has passed one before.
Venezuela, at 2.8¢. The panel put it at 0.3%, roughly a ninth of what the market pays, and the reason is a document. A Congressional Research Service report dated August 13, 2026 sets out actual US policy after the January 3, 2026 capture of Nicolás Maduro: a three-phase plan of stabilization, economic recovery, and political transition, with Secretary Rubio testifying on June 3 that "in order to truly transition, they have to have multi-party, free and fair elections." The State Department welcomed the first round of those talks on August 6. Congress appropriated $50 million in democracy funding for Venezuela and the House-passed FY2027 bill would direct another $50 million. That is a program for building a Venezuelan election, not for absorbing a state. Venezuela is also the one contract on this board that a statehood remark genuinely moved. In mid-May the President told Fox News anchor John Roberts he was "seriously considering" making Venezuela the 51st state, citing the country's oil. The contract closed at 1.8¢ on May 11 and at 4.8¢ on May 12, and it peaked at 6.8¢ a week later. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez answered that Venezuela would never consider statehood because Venezuelans "love our independence process." The price has bled back to 2.7¢ bid in the fourteen weeks since. His other statehood references have come on social media, including "Statehood, #51, Anyone?" and a one-word "statehood" after Venezuela won the World Baseball Classic.
Colombia, at 0.55¢. The cheapest contract that is not D.C., and the panel priced it at effectively zero. Relations are hostile: the President has called President Gustavo Petro "an illegal drug leader", announced tariffs and an end to US aid, and Petro has objected publicly to US strikes on vessels in the southern Caribbean. Hostility is not a statehood proposal, and no seat could locate one in any record.
Canada, at 1.25¢. The most-discussed candidate in North America sits fourth-cheapest of the eight, below Greenland and Puerto Rico, which is itself the finding. On June 2, 2026, after sharing an article about Canada slipping into a technical recession the previous week, the President posted "51st State!". The contract closed that day at 2.7¢, exactly where it had closed the day before, and it has drifted down to 1.1¢ bid in the eleven weeks since. Ontario Premier Doug Ford's response was "I can't believe I have to say this again, but Canada will never be the 51st state," and Prime Minister Mark Carney has said the idea will never happen. The panel priced Canada sixth at 0.2%. A G7 government that has refused categorically is the hardest counterparty on the board.
Where The Panel Changed Its Mind
After the first round, every model read the other seven boards anonymously and could revise. Two seats moved hard, one moved against the crowd, and the disagreement that survived is more interesting than the one that closed.
Opus reversed its own ranking. In round one it had Greenland first, on "executive capital, a Republican-sponsored statehood bill, and the loosest settlement language." In round two it moved Puerto Rico to the top. It did not, however, follow the group all the way down: two of the seven boards it read had put "no state admitted" at 97% and 98%, and Opus explained why it would not go there.
"the foreign candidates carry genuine coercive machinery in this card that no prior term had — an arrested head of state (Venezuela), a blockaded oil supply and 'friendly takeover' quote (Cuba), tariff ultimatums and a purchase deadline (Greenland). Coercion is real optionality even without a bill." — Claude Opus
Kimi made the largest move on the board, taking "no state admitted" from 84% to 95%, and it stopped deliberately short of the most bearish seats, writing that "this term carries unusually high executive fixation, which fattens left tails even without legislative movement."
Sonnet moved almost as far, from 85% to 95.5%, after seeing how the others weighed the committee ledger:
"This is almost entirely a mechanism/base-rate market wearing a geopolitics costume. Settlement requires an actual Act of Congress signed before Jan 20 2029, and the ledger is unambiguous." — Claude Sonnet
Fable held near where it started and said plainly why the others did not move it:
"The other forecasters surfaced no card fact I had not weighed." — Claude Fable
Its full note went on to say that the seats carrying higher Cuba, Venezuela and Greenland numbers were resting on rhetoric rather than on anything that had moved in the congressional record, which is why it held near the middle of the group.
DeepSeek was the one seat that moved the other way, dropping from 97% to 93.2%, the most bullish "something happens" number on the panel after revision.
What Would Change The Panel's Mind
Each seat named the developments that would move its board. Four came back nearly unanimous, and all four are things you can check.
- Any of these eight bills is reported out of committee. Seven of eight seats named this first. It is the gate that has never opened in this Congress, and opening it would move that candidate up several points and pull the top row down. The bills where it would show up are H.R. 9246, H.R. 51 and S. 51, and H.R. 7012.
- A partisan-balance package appears. A paired admission bill, the 1959 solution, is the only historically demonstrated route past the Senate. Gemini named the specific shape: a Greenland-plus-Puerto Rico pairing. Nothing resembling it exists today.
- Denmark or Greenland's government opens sovereignty talks on the record. Frederiksen's July 7 statement is the thing that would have to be reversed. Fable added a second, softer version of the same trigger: a fresh Greenlandic poll showing opposition under roughly 60% rather than 85%.
- The November 3, 2026 midterms. Several seats flagged that the new Congress seated in January 2027 restarts committee work rather than continuing it, which shortens an already tight window. GLM and Kimi both said unified Democratic control would lift Puerto Rico and D.C. at the top row's expense; a Republican hold leaves the board roughly where it sits.
Two triggers point down rather than up. A failed Guam referendum in November 2026 would take Guam to zero for this window, and a formal Venezuelan election date under the CRS three-phase plan would do the same to Venezuela.
Settlement Timeline
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| November 3, 2026 | US midterm elections. Guam's proposed status question is on the same ballot. |
| January 3, 2027 | The 120th Congress is seated. Every bill in the table above dies and must be reintroduced. |
| 2028 | The earliest possible Guam status plebiscite, if the November 2026 question passes. |
| January 20, 2029 | Expiration. All eight contracts settle NO unless Congress has admitted a 51st state. |
Each contract also closes early if its own outcome occurs. This board is re-scored when the story moves, with the as-of stamp updated at the top; the snapshot above is August 22, 2026.
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The Bottom Line
The market and the panel are not far apart on the question everyone asks. The eight candidate midpoints leave about 87 cents of room for nothing happening; the models say 94%. Both are versions of the same answer.
They are far apart on the question almost nobody asks, which is who is second. Traders have built their ranking out of the news cycle, and the news cycle has been about Cuba, Venezuela and Greenland. The panel built its ranking out of a committee calendar, and the committee calendar says Puerto Rico, because Puerto Rico is the one already-American candidate that needs a single Act of Congress without a multi-year plebiscite clock ahead of it or a Congress legislating the other way.
Both rankings will be graded in public. If a Cuba bill gets filed and moves, the market was reading something the models could not see in the congressional record. If January 2029 arrives with all eight contracts settling at zero and Puerto Rico's H.R. 9246 still sitting in committee alongside the seven others, then the loudest annexation talk in modern American memory will have produced exactly what the ledger predicted: a lot of headlines, and fifty states.
To be explicit: the numbers on this page are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange, participation is 18+, availability varies by state and can change, and nothing on this page is a recommendation to trade.
