With the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize set to be announced on Friday, Newsweek has looked at the market odds of Pope Leo XIV winning. The pontiff has made world peace a central theme of his papacy, repeatedly calling for the end to wars around the world, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the war in the Middle East. He has offered the Vatican as a venue for negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pursue a ceasefire in Gaza and has been critical of U.S.
President Donald Trump’s war in Iran. It is not known whether Pope Leo is an official nominee, as the Nobel Committee keeps nominations confidential for 50 years, but his name is featured in major market odd platforms. Both Polymarket and Kalshi show Leo’s odds at 2 percent, as of Thursday morning, on par with Doctors Without Borders and the International Criminal Court.
Pope Leo is priced above Trump (1 percent) on both platforms, where Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms lead with 17 percent on Polymarket and 16 percent on Kalshi. The organization is a network providing humanitarian aid to people affected by the country’s civil war. Polymarket lists other likely candidates as Ukrainian children’s rights advocate Mykola Kuleba (9 percent), Save the Children (8 percent) and Yulia Navalnaya (5 percent), a Russian opposition activist and the widow of Alexei Navalny.
Kalshi gives Kuleba 10 percent odds. Other possibilities include the International Criminal Court of Justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Leo used his first Sunday Regina Caeli, in May 2025, to appeal to world leaders to work against war.
May everything possible be done to reach an authentic, just and lasting peace, as soon as possible,” he said. Let humanitarian aid be provided to the stricken civil population, and let all the hostages be freed.” A month later, Leo spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Ukraine, humanitarian aid and prisoner exchanges. Leo then met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, offering the Vatican as a venue for negotiations.
He spoke with Netanyahu in July, met with Zelensky again in July and, just last week, joined hundreds of children in praying the rosary for peace. Earlier this year, Leo strongly condemned the war in the Middle East, and the "delusion of omnipotence" that caused it, saying it has led to "absurd and inhuman violence." In April, when Trump wrote on social media that "an entire civilization will die tonight" if Iran failed to meet a U.S. deadline, Leo responded: "This is truly unacceptable." Trump later posted a scathing attack on the pope in a post on Truth Social, calling him "weak on crime" and "terrible for foreign policy." When Trump accused Leo of “rather talk [ing]about the fact that it's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” Leo said: "If anyone wishes to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, let them do so with the truth. The Church has spoken out for years against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt about this, and I simply hope to be heard for the sake of the Word of God." Leo and Trump administration officials have downplayed the rift.
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