Prediction market Polymarket is pricing a 62% probability that US military forces will enter Iran by April 30, with traders having staked more than $35 million on the question, as the conflict that has already sent oil prices to crisis highs threatens to push them to levels never seen before.
The market, which resolves as "yes" only if active US personnel physically enter Iranian territory for operational purposes, shows a sharp escalation in implied probability over longer time horizons, with the December 31 contract pricing a 71% likelihood, up 22 percentage points in recent days.
For the near term, however, bettors are more sceptical, placing just an 18% probability on US forces entering Iran before the end of March, a contract that has actually drifted down 6 points as President Donald Trump extended his deadline for striking Iranian energy sites by a further 10 days to April 6, reportedly after Iran allowed ten oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz as a goodwill gesture.
The stakes could hardly be higher for energy markets. Brent crude was trading around $110 a barrel on Friday, having touched $119.50 earlier this month as Iran's near-complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz throttled a waterway that previously carried around 15 million barrels of crude and five million barrels of refined products daily.
Macquarie Group warned this week that if the conflict drags into the second quarter with the strait remaining shut, oil could hit $200 a barrel, which would be a record in real terms, a scenario its analysts put at 40% probability.
The remaining 60%, in Macquarie's assessment, rests on the war concluding by the end of March, a window that Polymarket's own bettors appear increasingly reluctant to back.