Supreme Court retirement odds trade justice by justice on Kalshi: a separate contract on each of the nine sitting justices, asking whether that justice resigns or announces an intent to resign before Trump's term ends on January 20, 2029. Roughly $103K has traded, concentrated on the two most senior conservatives, Samuel Alito, 76, and Clarence Thomas, 78. Alito said in August 2026 that he is staying for another term, and the market has pushed his contract back to the top of the board anyway. The live board above carries the current price on every justice.
Kalshi lists a separate contract on every sitting Supreme Court justice, each asking the same question: does that justice resign, or announce an intent to resign, before Trump's term ends on January 20, 2029? Nine contracts, roughly $103K in cumulative volume, and a board that has now priced straight through the biggest piece of news it has had. In August 2026 the market's favorite told a reporter on the record that he is not going anywhere, and three weeks later his contract sits higher than it did before he said it. This is a retirement-timing market, not a scandal market, and the pricing concentrates almost entirely on the two most senior conservatives. The live board above carries the current price on each justice.
Samuel Alito, 76, carries the highest price on the board, and the interesting part is that he carries it after saying out loud that he is staying. In a Wall Street Journal interview with James Taranto published August 7, 2026, Alito said "Obviously I'm here for another term," meaning the term that opens October 5, 2026 and runs through late June 2027. He had already hired all four of his law clerks for that term, the standard tell that a justice plans to keep working. His contract sold off on the interview. It has since taken all of that back and then some: 65c on August 31, 2026, up from 58c two weeks earlier.
That round trip is the whole read on this contract. Nothing Alito said touched 2028. He joined the Court in January 2006 as a George W. Bush appointee, he is the second-oldest justice, and a retirement inside the term still lets a Republican president and Senate replace him with a conservative decades younger. Trump has said publicly that he is prepared to name up to three new justices and praised Alito for staying rather than pressuring him out. The board got a second stress test on June 30, 2026, when NPR published, then retracted, a report that Alito was retiring, and the Court denied it within hours. Both episodes show the same behavior: a single headline reprices this contract violently, and the resolution question is patient enough to absorb three more years of them. The roughly $49K traded on the Alito contract alone is close to half the volume on the entire board.
Clarence Thomas, 78, is the oldest and longest-serving sitting justice, on the Court since 1991 as a George H.W. Bush appointee. His is the only other contract priced as a genuine possibility rather than a tail risk. The gap between him and Alito had closed to 6c by mid-August. It has since blown back out. Thomas trades 49c on August 31, 2026 against Alito's 65c, a 16c spread, and Thomas slipping under 50c matters on its own: that is the line between a market that expects him to go and one that does not.
Information asymmetry explains most of the move. Alito went on the record and Thomas did not. Sources close to Thomas told CBS News he does not plan to step down this year, which is a weaker signal than a named quote, and legal scholars who know him have said a Thomas retirement would surprise them. The trade was never about 2026 anyway. It is about whether a justice who turns 80 in June 2028 chooses to leave on his own terms while an aligned president and Senate can seat his successor. Replacing Thomas or Alito would not change the Court's 6-3 conservative majority. It would change its duration, extending Trump's imprint on the bench for decades. That is the entire bull case on both contracts, and it is why the two prices track the political calendar, Senate control, and the Court's end-of-term ritual more than anything either justice actually says in a given month.
Chief Justice John Roberts, 71 and head of the Court since 2005, holds the clear third position at 24c on August 31, 2026, up 2c in two weeks and still 25c behind Alito. A Roberts departure would be a bigger shock than either senior conservative leaving, and nothing in his public posture points at one. He is the lone middle tier between the two leaders and the long shots.
The other six justices are priced as long shots for straightforward reasons. Sonia Sotomayor, 72, tops that tier at 9c and is followed by Elena Kagan, 66, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, 55, all Democratic appointees with no incentive to open a seat for a Republican president; the loudest retirement pressure on Sotomayor came during the Biden years, and she did not move then. Neil Gorsuch, who turned 59 in August, Brett Kavanaugh, 61, and Amy Coney Barrett, 54, are Trump's own first-term appointees, decades from a natural retirement window. Five of the six sit at exactly 5c, and that flat line is the market saying it has no information on them rather than producing six separate estimates. Any of the nine resigning would activate the same succession trade, which is why this board and the next-justice board move together.
The market closes on January 20, 2029, when Trump's term ends. Each justice's contract settles independently: it resolves Yes if that justice resigns or announces an intent to resign from the Supreme Court before that date, and No otherwise. The announcement alone is sufficient. A justice who announces in June 2028 with an effective date after the next inauguration still settles Yes at the announcement. More than one contract can finish Yes, which is why the nine prices sum to 172c as of August 31, 2026 without any pricing error, and Kalshi settles each under its official rules for event KXSCOTUSRESIGN-29.
A resignation on this board immediately activates the succession trade: the next Supreme Court justice odds board prices the replacement race across 39 named candidates and has now traded roughly $693K, more than six times this board, with Fifth Circuit judges Andrew Oldham at 14c and James Ho at 13c leading that field on August 31, 2026. The Court is also a market subject in its own right; the SCOTUS sports-event contract case market prices whether the justices take the case that decides how sports prediction contracts are regulated, a coin flip at 51c with roughly $15K traded and a December 31, 2026 deadline. For every race, nomination, and policy board, browse the full set of politics prediction markets.
Each of the nine justice contracts resolves independently on Kalshi. A contract resolves Yes if that justice resigns or announces an intent to resign from the Supreme Court before January 20, 2029, the end of Trump's term; the announcement alone is sufficient, even if the effective departure date falls later. Contracts for justices who make no such announcement resolve No when the market closes on January 20, 2029. Multiple contracts can resolve Yes, and Kalshi settles each under its official event rules for ticker KXSCOTUSRESIGN-29.
As of August 31, 2026, Kalshi prices Samuel Alito at 65c and Clarence Thomas at 49c to resign or announce retirement before January 20, 2029. John Roberts trades at 24c, Sonia Sotomayor at 9c, and the remaining five justices at 5c apiece.
The market closes January 20, 2029, when Trump's term ends. Each justice's contract resolves Yes as soon as that justice resigns or announces an intent to resign, so an announcement can settle a contract years before the close date.
The board trades on Kalshi under event ticker KXSCOTUSRESIGN-29, with a separate Yes and No contract for each of the nine sitting justices. Roughly $103K has traded across the board, and the Alito contract alone accounts for about $49K of it.
The market says Samuel Alito, and his edge has widened back out. He led Clarence Thomas by 6c on August 17, 2026 and by 16c on August 31, even though Alito is the justice who publicly said he is staying for another term.
Watch the October 2026 term opening on October 5, the close of that term in late June 2027, clerk hiring for the terms after it, the November 3, 2026 Senate midterms, and any on-record signal from Clarence Thomas of the kind Alito gave in August 2026.