At 5 a.m. Eastern Time on Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that this year’s Peace Prize would go to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

It came as a surprise. On the two largest prediction markets, Polymarket and Kalshi, Machado had been running behind Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, and President Donald Trump, whose brokering of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel this week generated calls for him to get the award.

But, something odd happened Thursday night. At 6:30 p.m. ET, Machado’s odds of winning sat at 3.6 percent. By 7:00, they jumped to 39 percent, then 65 percent by 7:30, topping out at 73 percent by 8:00. Less than ten hours later, the Nobel Committee made it official.

Economist Jason Furman, a Harvard professor and former chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers,

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