Forecast Markets Show Decline in Pardon Chances
Prediction Market traders actually lowered the odds of a presidential pardon for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried after his parents gave this interview to CNN. It’s interesting how this works: you’d think more public attention would help, but the numbers have moved the other way.
Polymarket now shows only an 11% chance of a pardon being obtained this year. Kalshi is even lower at 9%. Both platforms lost a few percentage points after Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried’s appearance on CNN on March 21. The change wasn’t huge, but it was noticeable. Perhaps traders viewed the interview as counterproductive in some way.
Parents defend their son’s actions
In the interview with Michael Smerconish, Bankman and Fried stuck to their positions. They said they believed the judgment against their son was wrong. “There is an appeal in this case, but we don’t believe it’s fraud,” Bankman said. Both acknowledged that Alameda Research had borrowed customer funds from FTX, but they claimed those funds were not misused.
Bankman said Alameda was “acting like everyone else, investing and borrowing money.” He insisted “the money was still there” and said Alameda had enough support to cover its positions. Fried echoed this, saying, “All the money was there, every penny was there. » She argued that the assets ended up in FTX’s estate during the bankruptcy anyway.
Legal and political obstacles remain
The parents’ defense brought to light their own links with FTX. Bankman worked as a paid advisor to the stock market, while Fried was described as a political consultant. When FTX filed for bankruptcy in 2023, the estate sued them in Delaware, trying to recover funds and property they claimed had been improperly transferred.
That complaint alleged discussions regarding a $10 million cash gift and a $16.4 million luxury property in the Bahamas. It also alleges that Bankman helped foster a culture of inaccuracies and mismanagement within the company. This case was dismissed without prejudice in February 2025, so it could potentially be refiled.
Appeal faces uphill battle
In February 2026, Fried filed an appeal on behalf of his son. The filing argues that new testimony would call into question three key assertions by the government: that FTX was insolvent on November 11, 2022, that customers had no real prospect of repayment, and that Alameda regularly ran a multibillion-dollar deficit on FTX.
The family tried to frame this politically. Fried said, “The prosecution of Sam was essentially political” and argued that parts of the Biden administration were targeting the crypto industry. But public support appears thin. Senator Cynthia Lummis told Politico: “I hope the president doesn’t get caught up in this. … He hurt a lot of people.”
Trump reportedly indicated he would not pardon Bankman-Fried either. So prediction market traders don’t have much reason to be optimistic. The figures suggest that a pardon remains unlikely in 2026, and the parents’ appearance in the media might actually have made the situation slightly worse in terms of public perception.
It’s a strange situation where more attention doesn’t necessarily mean better chances. Markets seem to be reading the political tea leaves, and at the moment, those leaves do not seem favorable to a pardon.
