On July 3, the Daily Telegraph reported that a gambler bet hundreds of thousands of pounds on Vladimir Putin stepping down before the end of the year.

The trader, using a Ukrainian flag as his profile picture on the Polymarket prediction market, placed a bet of $409,000 (306,000 pounds) that the Russian president, who has been in power for 26 years, will leave office by the end of December.
The odds of winning were only 12%, so they could win up to $2.5 million (1.9 million pounds).
According to NBC, the gambler, who goes by the pseudonym ZnotluvuiSamez, joined Polymarket in April and also bet over $60k (45k pounds) that Ukraine would recapture occupied Crimea by December 31, and placed a bet of nearly $5,000 (3,700 pounds) that Kyiv would sign a peace agreement by August 31.
In recent global conflicts, trading volume on prediction markets—where users can buy and sell "shares" in the likelihood of future events—has surged.
Although the probability of Putin's power collapsing in the short term is extremely low, there are signs that his once-unshakable regime may be facing increasing pressure as Ukraine begins to gain the upper hand on the battlefield.
This week, the Russian state polling agency VTsIOM found that Putin's approval rating is dropping at the fastest rate since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.