“In fact, there was a moment where the prediction markets hit 87% for Bolsonaro… I will tell you, they missed. They were overconfident on this election. I missed. I wish I had been lower on the Flavio market.”
Odd Lots · Money & Markets · November 2026
Context
Asked about his own forecast for Brazil's runoff, Bosworth said he had Bolsonaro at 64% the night before while prediction markets were around 80%. Here he answers whether Lula's upset was a 20% shot coming in or a market miss: a miss.
Transcript
I had a win. He was
64% chance to win. To win. Yes, yes. Exactly.
64% chance to win. And the prediction markets were at 80%. Yeah, they were. In fact, there was a moment where the prediction markets hit 87% for Bolsonaro. And so there's always this element of, you know, who got it less wrong becomes a real question in some of these prediction market things. And I know that this was a big miss for the prediction market. Yeah. Right. I mean, you always wonder, was this the 20% shot that happened or did they miss? I will tell you, they missed. They were overconfident on this election. I missed. I wish I had been lower on the flavor market. So you
obviously thought that Lula had a real chance of winning.
Oh, absolutely. You know, better than a third, right? The chance of winning. And the reasons were, I mean, you could see him slowly catching up in the polls and you could see his campaign just doing well generally. Now, I can't base a prediction on vibes. All of the data, all of the polls said…
herding together and correlated. And there's there were other issues as well. So that all went into the model. How much of the miss by prediction markets and pollsters, I guess, had to do with, I guess, surprise voters actually turning out in the election? Because it seems like maybe a lot of…
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