Will a cotton candy lobster be caught in U.S. waters before 2027?
Aired 18 August 2026 · written 29 July, when Before Jan 1, 2027 was 29%
The market we based this episode on
The board on 29 July 2026, the day the script was written. A price is the market’s odds of that outcome.
Why we chose it
This bet exists because cotton candy lobsters have become a recurring viral-news microgenre — the pastel pink-purple-blue crustaceans that keep surfacing in New England lobster traps every year or two, complete with the same irresistible "1-in-100 million" hook. Most recently, "Joseph," a cotton-candy clawed lobster, arrived at Northeastern's Marine Science Center in Nahant in December 2025, following Joseph Kramer's July 2024 catch off New Castle, New Hampshire, which was donated to the Seacoast Science Center in Rye. Kalshi is basically pricing the annual cadence of this novelty story.
The realistic YES case: these catches have hit the news in 2021, 2024, and late 2025, and the Maine/NH/Mass lobster fleet pulls millions of traps a season — one more freak-color hit before New Year's is very plausible, and reporters love the story so it won't go unnoticed. The NO case at 30%: it's already late 2026, "1-in-100-million" odds are real, and no confirmed 2026 US catch has surfaced (the April 2026 Wellfleet find was a split-color, not cotton candy). Trap hauls also drop off in winter — the window's closing.
What we thought
How it’s moved since
Daily price. The dotted line is the day the episode was written — the odds Sal and Eddie were looking at. The solid line is the day it aired.
The market has moved up from 29% on the day the episode was written to 99% today.