Polymarket catapulted Waller’s Fed chair odds from 27% to 85% after reports the DOJ will drop its criminal probe into Jerome Powell, clearing a key Senate roadblock.
Summary
- Polymarket traders now assign an 85% chance that Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller will be confirmed as Fed chair before May 15, up from 27% earlier in the day.
- The move follows reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to drop its criminal investigation into current Fed chair Jerome Powell, removing a key obstacle in the Senate.
- Senator Thom Tillis had vowed to block any committee vote on President Trump’s nominee until the Powell probe was “fully and transparently resolved,” giving the DOJ decision major procedural significance.
Prediction markets have dramatically repriced the odds that Christopher Waller will become the next chair of the Federal Reserve after fresh signals that the Department of Justice will shut down its criminal case against Jerome Powell. On Polymarket, contracts tied to the outcome “Waller will be confirmed as Chairman of the Federal Reserve before May 15” have jumped from around 27% to roughly 85% in short order, a 211% relative increase that reflects traders’ belief that the main political roadblock is about to vanish.
While the specific Waller market is separate from Polymarket’s higher‑volume “Who will be confirmed as Fed Chair?” and “Kevin Warsh confirmed as Fed Chair by…?” contracts, the underlying dynamic is the same: odds are reacting to developments in the Powell investigation and the Senate Banking Committee’s posture. In the broader Fed chair contract, Kevin Warsh still leads with about a 94% implied probability over other contenders such as Judy Shelton and Michelle Bowman, but short‑dated timing markets have become far more sensitive to any news about Powell’s legal overhang.
According to a detailed chronology compiled on Wikipedia, federal prosecutors opened a criminal inquiry into Powell early this year related to alleged cost overruns on renovations of two historic Fed buildings, prompting an unusually public clash between the central bank and the Trump administration. As of April, Powell has not been charged with any crime, and the Department of Justice formally dropped the investigation on April 24, clearing a key condition that Senator Thom Tillis (R‑N.C.) had tied to his support for any successor.
Tillis, a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee, had repeatedly warned that he would use his position to block Trump’s nominees from getting a committee vote so long as the DOJ probe remained open. Local outlets such as KATV and KOMO News reported this week that Tillis “will continue to block President Trump’s nominee until the Justice Department ends its probe of current Chair Powell,” effectively making the DOJ’s decision a gating item for any confirmation timeline.
With that obstacle now expected to fall away, traders are marking up the probability that the Senate can move quickly enough to confirm Waller before Powell’s term officially ends on May 15. Polymarket’s live odds page notes that its Fed chair timing contracts resolve to “yes” if the nominee secures Senate confirmation by the deadline, and “no” if the nomination is withdrawn or rejected — a structure that helps explain why even small shifts in the DOJ’s stance can produce outsized swings in short‑term probabilities.