Will Vladimir Putin cease to be president of Russia by December 31, 2026? That is the question on the December leg of Polymarket's "Putin out as President of Russia by...?", and yes was 3.15 cents at 07:03 UTC on October 7, 2026. The bid was 3.1 cents, the offer 3.2, the last trade 3.1. No was 96.85 cents. The leg had traded about $23.72 million, with about $683,204 of liquidity still up. The event showed about $27.62 million of volume and $70,984 in the prior 24 hours, and $68,146 of that day, 96%, was this leg. A pull at 06:50 UTC had the same 3.15 cent yes. He turns 74 today. The Kremlin biography records a birth in Leningrad on October 7, 1952, and the start of this term on May 7, 2024. The book is not pricing the end of that term. It is pricing the 85 days to New Year's Eve, on the Eastern Time clock written into the rules.
The other open contract on the same event, Putin out by June 30, 2027, was 9.5 cents yes, bid 9 cents and offered at 10, with the last trade at 10. A flat daily hazard fitted to the 9.5 cent price over the 266 days from October 7 to June 30 implies 3.14% by December 31. The December leg is 3.15%. Run the same sum off the June bid and the June offer and the implied December price spans 2.97% to 3.31%, a band that contains the live print. The two legs are one hazard seen from two dates, not two opinions. Both books are on the Polymarket event. Links to Polymarket are affiliate links, from which The Traders Spread may earn a commission at no cost to you.
That match is why this desk does not print a different fair value.
Key facts
- December 31, 2026 yes price 3.15%, no 96.85%, bid 3.1 cents, ask 3.2 cents, last trade 3.1 cents. Polymarket gamma-api, event putin-out-before-2027, pulled 07:03 UTC on October 7, 2026.
- December leg volume about $23.72 million and liquidity about $683,204. Same pull. The leg is open and still taking orders.
- Event volume about $27.62 million, 24-hour volume $70,984, event liquidity about $815,338, open interest about $7.68 million. Same pull.
- June 30, 2027 yes price 9.5%, bid 9 cents, ask 10 cents, last trade 10 cents, volume about $585,499, liquidity about $131,757, 24-hour volume $2,837. Open. Same pull.
- The July 31, August 31 and September 30, 2026 legs are closed, with resolution status resolved, and settled No. Closed at 06:09 UTC on August 1, 06:23 UTC on September 1, and 06:02 UTC on October 1, 2026. Same payload. Those prints are settlements, not live odds.
- Vladimir Putin was born in Leningrad on October 7, 1952, won the election held March 15 to 17, 2024, and assumed office on May 7, 2024. Kremlin biography of the presidents of Russia, read October 7, 2026.
- United Nations World Population Prospects 2024, medium variant, tabulated for Russian men in 2025: 51.58 deaths per 1,000 at ages 70 to 74, and 74.51 per 1,000 at ages 75 to 79. PopulationPyramid.net, read October 7, 2026. Over 85 days those rates are about 1.19% and 1.72%. They are not a model of this contract.
What yes actually pays
The 3.15 cent price is not a coup price. The rules resolve yes if Putin ceases to be president for any period between the market's creation and the specified date, Eastern Time. An announcement of resignation or removal before the end date resolves yes at once, even if the departure takes effect later. Detention, effective removal, or being permanently stopped from doing the job also qualifies. The named sources are official information from Putin and the Russian government. A consensus of credible reporting can be used as well.
The December leg was created on July 6, 2025. He has not left since, which is why three nearer dates have settled No. What remains is the stretch to 11:59 p.m. Eastern on December 31, 2026. The end stamp is 04:59 UTC on January 1, 2027. Death would count. So would a resignation announced before the buzzer, or a removal the rules treat as permanent. A rumor would not, unless it met that standard.
Three cents is a small price for a wide set of paths. It is also a large price for any single one of them.
One hazard, two dates
The chart is only the two contracts that are still open. July, August and September are omitted on purpose. Quoting a settled leg as if it still had a price would be a fake quote. The shape that remains is simple. Yes costs 3.15% for a deadline 85 days away and 9.50% for a deadline 266 days away.
The arithmetic is a constant hazard, nothing fancier. If the chance of still being president on June 30 is 90.5%, and that survival is spread evenly over 266 days, the daily chance of an exit is about 0.0375 percentage points. Carry that rate for 85 days and the yes price on December 31 is 3.14%. The same exercise on the December price itself produces 0.0376 percentage points a day. If either rate ran for a full year it would compound to about 12.8%. That annual figure is a translator between the two dates. It is not a forecast that the next twelve months will look like the last twelve.
June is too wide for a sharper claim. Its tick is a full cent, against a tenth of a cent on December, and the book is 9 to 10. At the bid, June implies about 2.97% for December. At the offer, it implies about 3.31%. The live print sits inside that band. Liquidity says which number to anchor on: about $683,204 posted on December against about $131,757 on June, and $68,146 of daily volume against $2,837. Both books are on the event page.
| Leg | State | Yes | Bid / ask | Volume | Liquidity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 31, 2026 | Closed August 1, resolved No | Settlement, not a live price | Not live | $274,685 | Closed |
| August 31, 2026 | Closed September 1, resolved No | Settlement, not a live price | Not live | $1,079,268 | Closed |
| September 30, 2026 | Closed October 1, resolved No | Settlement, not a live price | Not live | $1,955,935 | Closed |
| December 31, 2026 | Open | 3.15% | 3.1 / 3.2 cents | $23,723,553 | $683,204 |
| June 30, 2027 | Open | 9.5% | 9 / 10 cents | $585,499 | $131,757 |
Volumes above are the gamma-api volume fields rounded to the dollar. Added up, the five legs match the event total of about $27.62 million. The September leg, which settled six days ago, had traded about $1.96 million on its own and still resolved No. Size did not force a yes.
The path looks like a calendar, not a sudden change of mind. CLOB daily history for the December yes token, pulled this session, marks 24.5 cents on July 7, 2025, 18.0 cents on October 7, 2025, 6.5 cents on September 7, 2026, 2.35 cents on October 5, and 3.15 cents on October 7. Gamma's one-year change of minus 14.85 cents matches the 18 cent mark. The one-month change of minus 3.35 cents matches the 6.5 cent mark. The one-week change of plus 0.7 cent implies about 2.45 cents, against a 2.35 cent daily print on October 5. One is a rolling window and one is a daily close. The live price used here is 3.15 cents, because the gamma outcome price and the latest CLOB point agree.
Time passed, and he stayed. The hazard did not have to be rewritten.
A death rate is not a fair value
Age is the obvious place to invent a number, and it does not work. Putin turns 74 today, on the Kremlin birth date. The UN World Population Prospects 2024 medium variant, in the 2025 table on PopulationPyramid.net, gives Russian men aged 70 to 74 a death rate of 51.58 per 1,000 a year. Held constant, that is about 1.19% over 85 days. Ages 75 to 79 are 74.51 per 1,000, or about 1.72%. He sits on the join, so the population range is about 1.2% to 1.7%, not a point.
That range is the wrong object. It describes men in Russia, not one man with a presidential clinic, and elite care would be expected to pull a personal death chance down, not up. The contract also pays on resignation, removal, detention and permanent incapacity. Subtract roughly 1.2% from 3.15% and the residual is a bin marked "everything else." Filling that bin and calling the sum a fair value would be an invented political probability.
So the published fair probability on this desk is 0.0315, equal to the live yes price. The call is in line.
Julian G. Waller, research scientist in the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analyses and professorial lecturer in political science at George Washington University, put the political point without a probability. In Foreign Affairs on August 7, 2026, he wrote: "Putin has consistently decided against designating a successor or institutionalizing a clear process for choosing one." He adds that a vacancy makes the prime minister acting president until an election, and that Mikhail Mishustin "lacks his own network of loyal supporters." That is an argument about who would struggle afterward. It is not a chance that the office is empty by New Year.
Leaving a price alone when the book is already coherent is a choice this desk has made on other questions. The Oklahoma data-center moratorium was left in line for the same reason: the quoted price was not a number we could honestly replace.
The term, the birthday, and the vacancy rule
The office is not about to expire on this contract's clock. The English text on the Constitute Project, a 2014 consolidation, says the president is elected for six years. The Kremlin records that this term began on May 7, 2024, after the March 15 to 17 election. Six years from that date is May 2030. December 31, 2026 is more than three years earlier. A yes would be an early end, not the ordinary close of a term.
That file is the wrong document for the 2020 amendments, and this piece makes no claim about them. Waller, in the August 2026 essay, is the source for the rule as it operates now: a vacancy passes to the prime minister, and an election is required within three months. Article 92 of the 2014 English text says the same thing in older words. The president ceases to exercise power early on resignation, persistent inability for health reasons, or impeachment. Duties go to the chairman of the government while that election is pending.
Putin has not talked like a man arranging the vacancy. In the Kremlin transcript of the May 7, 2024 inauguration, he said: "We stand as a united and great nation. Together we will overcome all obstacles and ensure that everything we conceive becomes reality. Together we win!" Speeches are not probabilities. They are the public position, and this one is a claim on the years ahead, made on the day the term started.
June is a comparison, not a second article, for the same reason a far-dated book is a different trade. J.D. Vance at 50% in the 2028 Republican nominee book is mostly a story about a distant date. Here the clock is the story. Eighty-five days of a low daily rate is how a grave question can trade at 3.15 cents.
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Base, bull and bear
Base case: leave the December yes price alone. Fair value here is 3.15%, the gamma print at 07:03 UTC, and the 06:50 UTC pull matched it. Inside the June spread, that leg implies about 2.97% to 3.31% for December. A population death rate near 74 is about 1.2% to 1.7% over these 85 days, and it is the wrong object to subtract. A refusal to name a successor, which Waller describes, is not a number. The call is in line.
The bull case for yes is a fact the rules would count. An announcement of resignation or removal before the end date resolves the leg yes at once, whatever the later effective date. Detention, or a condition that permanently prevents the job, qualifies on official information or a consensus of credible reporting. The contract jumps on that fact, or it does not. A headline that stops short of the rules is not this case, and neither is a stale quote of the same market at 11 or 12 cents.
The bear case for yes is the path July, August and September already took. He is still president at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on December 31, no departure has been announced, and the leg settles No. Most of the 3.15 cents is hazard still inside the 85 days, so a quiet week only nibbles. The one-week change is plus 0.7 cent, and the one-day change is minus 0.1 cent. A real bear case would cut the daily rate: evidence that made incapacity harder to claim, or a June price low enough to pull December under the current bid.
What would change the reading is narrow. A named analyst, with a title and a link, publishing a probability and a method a reader can recompute. A gap between the open legs wider than June's one-cent spread. Or a verified fact inside the resolution rules. A rounder fair value, without one of those, is decoration. The same test kept the Texas Senate price tied to its own clock. The contract is the December leg on Polymarket.
Questions readers actually ask
Does 3.15 cents mean a 3.15% chance he is out by New Year?
It means traders were paying 3.15 cents for a contract that pays one dollar if the rules resolve yes. Treat that as an implied probability only after the spread. The bid is 3.1 and the ask is 3.2, so a dealable price sits a tenth of a cent off the midpoint. Fees are not in this figure. The print is the gamma outcome price of 0.0315 at 07:03 UTC on October 7, 2026.
Why mention June 2027 at all?
It is the only other leg still open, and the check on whether 3.15 cents is a lonely print. At 9.5 cents, on a 9 to 10 cent book, a flat daily hazard implies about 2.97% to 3.31% for December. The live price sits inside that band. June is thinner, about $131,757 of liquidity and $2,837 of volume on the day, so it checks the shape. It is not a second subject.
The summer legs resolved No. Does that cut the December price?
They resolved No because he was still president on those dates. July closed on August 1, August on September 1, and September on October 1, each in the first hours UTC, each with a resolved status. Settlement prices of zero and one are not live odds. All they add now is that the early window produced no yes. The remaining window is what 3.15 cents is for.
He turns 74 today. Should the price be higher?
A national death rate for Russian men around that age is about 1.2% to 1.7% over 85 days, on the UN medium-variant table for 2025. That sits below 3.15%, and it is not his personal rate. Care available to a president would be expected to lower it further. The contract also pays on resignation and removal, which the table ignores. This desk will not fill the gap with a guess.
What would make the in-line call wrong?
A sourced probability with a method, a break between December and June wider than June's one-cent spread, or a fact the rules count as resignation, removal, detention or permanent incapacity. An old screenshot at a higher price does not qualify. Nor does the May 7, 2024 line about a united nation, which is a posture, not a chance. Until one of those three arrives, fair value stays on the live yes price.
Disclaimer
This is analysis, not a recommendation. Prediction-market contracts can resolve against the side you hold, liquidity can vanish, and capital is at risk. Nothing here tells a reader to take either outcome. Prices and volumes are from the Polymarket gamma-api pull at 07:03 UTC on October 7, 2026, checked against a 06:50 UTC pull the same morning and against CLOB daily history for the path. They will be stale by the time you read them.