Netanyahu out by... Odds & Analysis
The will Netanyahu be out odds have reset sharply since early summer. As of late October 2026, the "Netanyahu out by end of 2026" contract on prediction markets trades at about 39.5%, down from a peak near 63.5% in June. Israelis vote on Tuesday, October 27, and the final polls published on October 23 all put Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party first and the anti-Netanyahu bloc ahead, yet no poll gives either camp the 61 seats needed to govern. That combination - a likely opposition plurality but no clear majority, with only nine weeks between election day and the December 31 deadline - is exactly why the market now leans NO. PredMart lets traders take a leveraged view on this contract, but the analysis below stands on its own.
The path here was not linear. The coalition fractured in May over ultra-Orthodox conscription, the Knesset formally dissolved on July 17, and the vote landed on October 27, the original statutory date. Along the way, the end-of-2026 contract swung from about 30.5% in early July to roughly 53.5% in mid-September before sliding back to the high 30s in October. Every earlier deadline contract on the board - March 31, April 30, May 31, June 30 and July 31 - has already resolved NO, so all remaining exit probability now sits in the year-end contract.
The year-end contract and why it sits below 50%
The key point about this market is that it does not ask who wins the election. It resolves YES only if Netanyahu actually ceases to be prime minister, or announces his resignation, before December 31. Under Israeli law he stays on as caretaker prime minister until a new government wins a Knesset confidence vote and is sworn in. Even an opposition win therefore has to turn into a sworn-in government within about nine weeks of election day to pay out on this contract.
History shows how tight that window is. After the November 1, 2022 election, which produced a clear 64-seat majority for Netanyahu's bloc, his government was not sworn in until December 29 - almost the full nine weeks. Official results this cycle are due on November 4, after which President Isaac Herzog consults the parties and gives one Knesset member 28 days to form a government, with a possible 14-day extension. A nominee who uses the standard period would run right up against the deadline, and one who needs the extension would run past it.
The polls make a fast handover harder still. In the three final TV polls reported by the Times of Israel on October 24, the "change" bloc won 54 seats (Channel 13), 56 (Channel 12) and 52 (Kan), against 50 for the current coalition in all three. Arab-led parties took 14 to 16 seats. A Zman Yisrael poll the day before had the two Jewish-led blocs tied at 51 each. On these numbers, an anti-Netanyahu government needs either the Arab parties or a defector from the right, and several change-bloc parties have ruled out sitting with Ra'am, even though its leader, Mansour Abbas, has said he is open to joining.
So the 39.5% price does not mean the market expects Netanyahu to win. It reflects the gap between winning the most seats and having a new prime minister sworn in before New Year's Eve.
How the contract got from 63% to 39%
The June peak came after the coalition broke over the draft-exemption fight and the dissolution process began. At that point the market was pricing a September election, which would have left about three months for coalition talks. Two things wore that premium down.
The first was timing. The contract fell to its 2026 low of about 30.5% in early July as it became clear the vote would come in late October, not September, and the Knesset formally dissolved on July 17 with the election set for October 27. That cut the time available for post-election talks almost in half. The second was the changing shape of the opposition. Bennett and Lapid had merged into a single Bennett-led list, Together (B'Yachad), in April, and through the spring it led the anti-Netanyahu camp. During the campaign, Eisenkot's Yashar overtook it. On September 5, Hili Tropper left the Zionist Home-Reservists alliance to join Yashar, and party lists closed on September 8. As the opposition consolidated around Yashar, the contract climbed back to about 53.5% in mid-September.
October undid most of that rebound, and the contract fell to about 37.5% by October 8. Polls were tight through the month: a polling average from about a week before the vote had the Zionist opposition at 51.25 seats and Netanyahu's bloc at 51, and one Channel 13 survey put Netanyahu's bloc ahead. The final polls gave the opposition a modest edge, but not enough to change the arithmetic. Both blocs still fall short of 61, and the Arab parties hold the balance.
The fade case against YES therefore rests less on Netanyahu winning outright than on deadlock. In a deadlock, coalition talks drag past December 31, or fail and force repeat elections in early 2027, and in both cases Netanyahu stays on as caretaker.
The surrounding markets and what they imply
The neighboring prediction markets help explain the 39.5% price. In the "Prime Minister of Israel after the next election" market, Eisenkot trades at about 51.75%, Netanyahu at 27.5%, Bennett at 13.5% and Avigdor Lieberman at 2.5%. Yashar is priced at 71% to win the most seats, against 28.5% for Likud. The opposition bloc is priced at 58% to win more seats than Netanyahu's bloc, as defined in that market's rules.
The majority markets look very different. "Any coalition wins a majority," which asks whether either the four-party opposition bloc or the six-party Netanyahu bloc reaches 61 on its own, trades at just 16.5%. A separate "hung parliament" market trades at 53.5%. In other words, traders see an Eisenkot premiership as more likely than not at some point, but they doubt it arrives quickly or cleanly. The gap between Eisenkot's roughly 52% and the year-end exit contract's 39.5% is mostly the market's estimate that a new government will not be sworn in by December 31, even if the election goes Eisenkot's way.
Several side markets add tail paths in both directions:
- Drops out before election: about 1.1%, which effectively rules out a pre-vote withdrawal.
- Announces retirement from politics by March 31, 2027: about 50%. This is a much broader window than the year-end exit contract, and it covers a post-election exit after a defeat or a negotiated legal arrangement.
- Convicted in the corruption trial: about 19.5%, on a market that runs to the end of 2027. The trial resumed in April after a wartime pause. Netanyahu's pardon request to Herzog has not ended the case, even after Trump said in February, as reported by Axios, that Herzog "should be ashamed" for not granting it. A verdict before December 31 is not a realistic catalyst for this contract.
- Knesset passes the "Defendant Law" by January 31, 2027: about 44.5%. Whatever the next coalition looks like, this will shape how the trial is debated.
- Election held as scheduled: about 94%, so the vote itself is close to certain.
For anyone building correlated positions, the cleanest relationship is between "Eisenkot next PM" and "out by end of 2026." The YES side of the exit contract is effectively a bet that Eisenkot, or another non-Netanyahu nominee, both wins and finishes coalition talks unusually fast. The NO side wins in a Netanyahu victory and in a slow opposition victory. Leverage magnifies that asymmetry: a position at 4x on the year-end contract is really a bet on a coalition-formation timeline, not on the vote count, and a few days of slow negotiations can move the price before any result is certain.
Catalysts and the windows that matter
The remaining calendar is short, and every date on it matters for the year-end contract.
October 27, 10 p.m. Israel time - exit polls. Israeli law bans publishing polls from the Saturday before the vote until polls close, so the Channel 12, Channel 13 and Kan exit polls are the first new data in four days. Whether either bloc reaches 61, and how close the Arab-led parties and the small right-wing lists come to the 3.25% threshold, will move the contract more than anything else. The Reservists under Yoaz Hendel cleared the threshold in only one of the three final polls, and Ofer Winter's People of Israel cleared it in none. A handful of seats near the threshold could decide whether a majority exists at all.
October 28 to November 4 - counting and certification. Official results are scheduled for November 4. Soldier and diplomatic ballots have shifted the final seat in past Israeli elections, and in a parliament where both blocs sit around 50-56 seats, one seat can change who is able to form a government.
Early to mid-November - presidential consultations and the mandate. Herzog meets each party and assigns the mandate to the member most likely to form a government. If that is Eisenkot, the 28-day clock starts, and the year-end contract will track every reported coalition draft. If the mandate goes to Netanyahu, or if Herzog pushes the two sides toward a unity arrangement, the contract will likely fall further.
December - the deadline itself. A sworn-in government needs a Knesset confidence vote. Prediction markets price a confidence vote being held by December 31 at about 43.5%, which closely matches the exit contract and points to the same bottleneck. The Knesset also has to elect a Speaker, which is priced at about 70% by year-end. A delay there would be an early sign that formation is slipping.
Background risk - Iran. Israel and the US began strikes on Iran on February 28, and a ceasefire followed in April. A related market prices the Israel-Iran ceasefire holding through December 31 at only about 39%. Renewed fighting during coalition talks would raise the cost of handing over power in wartime and would probably favor continuity, which leans toward NO.
Scenarios and how the contract resolves
Putting the polls and the neighboring markets together gives four broad paths:
- Clear opposition majority (61+ for the change bloc without the Arab parties). No final poll showed this, and the "any coalition wins a majority" market prices either bloc getting there at only 16.5%. If it happens, Eisenkot would probably get the mandate quickly, and the year-end contract would likely reprice well above 50%, though the 2022 precedent shows that even a clean majority can take close to nine weeks to swear in.
- Opposition plurality, no majority. This is the polls' central case and the hung-parliament market's slight favorite at 53.5%. A government would then depend on Ra'am's backing from outside the coalition, a unity deal, or defectors, and each of those is likely to take longer than the time left before December 31. This path mostly resolves NO for this contract, even if Netanyahu's exit only comes later.
- Netanyahu bloc plurality or majority. This matches the roughly 27.5% that the market gives Netanyahu to remain prime minister after the election, and it resolves NO.
- Non-electoral exit. A resignation announcement tied to a legal arrangement or health would resolve YES immediately under the contract's rules. The 1.1% pre-election dropout price and an ongoing trial with no verdict in sight keep this a small tail before year-end.
Weighted by the neighboring markets' own prices, these paths are consistent with a value in the mid-30s to low-40s, which is roughly where the contract trades. Margins of error of 2.3 to 4.4 points in the final polls leave plenty of room for election night to move the price in either direction.
Bottom line
As of late October 2026, the Netanyahu exit market has moved from a story about collapse to a story about timing. At about 39.5%, the year-end contract says Netanyahu's departure is plausible but more likely to happen after December 31 than before it. That fits final polls showing Eisenkot's Yashar in first place and the change bloc ahead, but with no clean path to 61 seats and an Israeli coalition calendar that rarely finishes in nine weeks. The exit polls at 10 p.m. on October 27 are the main event: a 61-seat result for either camp would reprice the contract within minutes, and a fragmented result would push the question into 2027. Traders who want amplified exposure to that repricing can use leverage on PredMart, though 4x leverage on a contract this sensitive to a single night's count calls for careful position sizing.
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