Some Bettors Made an Absolute Killing on the Longshot American Pope

Sorry to be late to the proceedings on Robert Francis Prevost, forever after to be referred to by his regnal name Pope Leo XIV. But when the news broke, I was engaged in fasting and prayer. On the front nine at Green Harbor GC in Marshfield. 

What type of leadership the new pontiff brings, in terms of his philosophy and style, is anyone's guess. All we know is where he grew up, where he went to school, and the journey he took to get to the Holy See:

FUS - The first American-born pope, Pope Leo XIV spent many years as a missionary in Peru before being elected head of the Order of St. Augustine. He was ordained as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2015, then named prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America in 2023.

Franciscan University of Steubenville’s president, vice president for Franciscan Life, vice president for Academic Affairs, and several theology faculty members shared their prayers and reactions to the announcement of Pope Leo XIV.

Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, President, Franciscan University of Steubenville: “To God be the glory! With trust in God’s providence, I rejoice with the entire Church in the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV. An Augustinian friar, who has vowed to live in poverty, chastity, and obedience, our new Holy Father has served Christ and the Church in the United States, Peru, and Rome. As he now takes up leadership of the worldwide Catholic Church, I pray the Holy Spirit will use Pope Leo XIV to draw all members of the Church and the world into the saving love of Jesus.”

By what manner that love manifests itself, remains to be seen. It's a journey all Catholics will be taking together. 

There is, however, one lesson I'm taking away from this. And it's one I've been teaching myself in one way or another for most of my adult life. And that is, to recognize I'm a lousy gambler. I had no money riding on the Conclave. But if I had, I'd have wagered anything against an American. I said as much right after Francis I went to God, discussing the possibility of Cardinal Robert Burke of the St. Louis Archdiocese:

[W]hile Burke is just a 6-seed in this Rome Madness bracket, and he's not without his own controversies, it's hard to count him out. Assuming that a lot of voters in the Conclave are, like those 20-somethings I mentioned, disheartened by Francis doing away with sacred 2,000 year old traditions, you can imagine there'll be support for a vocal advocate of course-correcting back to the way things were before. 

On the other hand, this is still an American we're talking about. Meaning his candidacy carries all the baggage of my culture and yours. No matter how amazed and self-satisfied with our own awesomeness, the rest of the world - an Europe in particular - still sees us as the obnoxious party house on the street that throws loud parties til all hours of the night, pees in their rose bushes and knocks the mailbox over when they're backing out in the morning. We might have given the world blue jeans, Johnny Cash and liberty. But we're still the ones responsible for the invention of toddler beauty pageants. …

So while I love my church and my country, even I'm afraid this would be a bad marriage from the start. I prefer my popes to speak English as a third language after their own and Latin, not with Missouri accents and a hundred stories about how good the Rams were in the 1990s-2000s. Having a more traditionalist pope might be a good thing. But the world is not ready for an American in the Holy See. And frankly, neither is this Catholic guy.

Shows you how much I know. The College of Cardinals begs to differ. And just turned my whole worldview upside down:

Now, by no means is this meant as an anti-wagering blog. It's just an anti-wagering by Old Balls post. I'm sure the guys who made a bag off of Leo XIV's election would agree:

Forbes - A handful of bettors scored massive payouts upon the selection of the new leader of the Catholic Church, Robert Francis Prevost, who was considered a longshot candidate on increasingly popular prediction markets which allow users to wager on news events. …

[S]ix users profited at least $20,000 on Prevost wagers, according to a publicly available ledger of all bets placed on Polymarket.

  

Leading those winners was a whopping $63,650.65 profit off of a $1,059.52 bet from a user named “JustPunched,” a more than 6,000% return on investment.

  

Polymarket rival Kalshi said one bettor on its platform received a $52,641 payout off of a $526 wager.

  

Prevost was a long-shot candidate on both sites before the church announced his selection, with just 1.6% and 1.8% market-implied odds of becoming the next pope as of 12 p.m. EDT on Thursday. [That] would have netted a roughly $10,000 payout.

If I had their acumen, and understood the College of Cardinals brackets like these anonymous handicappers, I'd be doing the same. I mean, how do you even get this proficient at betting on a Conclave? It's not like watching the Derby and knowing from past results that this horse is a mudder and that other one likes to trail then has a late finishing kick. This is as secret a deliberation as there is in all of civilization. The word Conclave literally translated means "locked room." With no phones. No communication other than their prayers and each other's company. Armed Swiss Guards pledging their very lives to prevent any outside interference. How on earth can anyone predict which direction they're going to break? Is there some kind of Cardinals Combine and Papal Draft pundits giving the scouting reports and offering updated Mocks? Because if there is, I want in. 

Again, not a gambler. Pools, brackets, squares, Fantasy, Daily Fantasy, poker games with friends, I'm all in. But if I knew the Pope betting markets well enough to get a 6000% ROI, I wouldn't have any other hobby. Instead, I couldn't have been more wrong. As is so often the case when I have money on the line. Which is why I prefer to leave it to the experts. Let's just pray there's not another one for many, many years to come. 

Habemus Papam, indeed.