The Vatican isn’t excommunicating crypto gamblers

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—by Protos Staff

A fake press announcement purporting to be from the Vatican’s Holy See Press Office claimed to “deplore” the crypto prediction market Polymarket for turning the search for a new Pope into a “mere speculative exercise.”

The supposed Holy See announcement, shared by X user @yoxics on Wednesday, urges the “faithful to uphold the dignity of the papal election as a matter of prayerful discernment rather than profit.”

They also claimed the Catholic Church “excommunicated thousands of crypto gamblers for betting on the next pope on Polymarket.”

In response to another user sharing this post, Polymarket’s X account responded, “wait what????” The person running the account may have gotten a little too excited about a potential interaction with the actual Holy See office, as another of their tweets on the subject was later deleted. 

The fake Holy See Polymarket press release (left) against a real press release on the same day (right).

Read more: DOGE lies break Polymarket prediction market

The Holy See represents the office of the pope and governs the Vatican City and the Catholic Church. The late Pope Francis passed away on April 21, 7:35 am, and now the papal election, also called the Conclave, is underway.

There’s no press release from the Holy See on April 22 referencing Polymarket on its site. Instead, it’s just announcements about the Pope’s funeral and rescheduling of “Beatification Celebrations.”

The Conclave consists of 120 male bishops voting on who will become the next pope in a series of ballots. A bishop needs two-thirds of the vote to become the new Pope. 

Polymarket has been promoting its papal election market over the past few days and currently lists Pietro Parolin as the most likely to be elected with a 27% chance. He’s followed by Luis Antonio Tagle and Matteo Zuppi who have a 21% and 13% chance, respectively. 

The likes of Amazon Prime are also doing some timely marketing following the death of Pope Francis, as it announced the Oscar-winning film Conclave would be available to stream days later.

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