The market gave it just 14%. ProbGap said 24%. One day later, the meeting happened.
Yesterday, we published PG-0008:
Will the U.S. and Iran hold a qualifying diplomatic meeting by September 30?
At publication, the prediction market assigned just a 14% probability.
ProbGap was higher:
Market: 14%
ProbGap: 24%
Gap: +10 percentage points
Less than a day later, the event occurred.
A qualifying meeting took place in New York
U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 22.
President Donald Trump subsequently described the talks as a “very good” and “very productive” meeting and said another meeting was scheduled in the near future. Iranian state media also reported the meeting and said Iran's conditions concerning the Strait of Hormuz were conveyed to the United States.
That distinction matters.
Yesterday, there was uncertainty over whether reports of the two sides “talking” represented indirect communication, messages through intermediaries or an actual qualifying diplomatic meeting.
We now have much stronger confirmation.
What the market rules required
The relevant prediction market defines a qualifying senior diplomatic meeting as one involving authorized senior representatives of both governments meeting for diplomacy or negotiation.
Special envoys and foreign ministers explicitly qualify.
Polymarket's own market page now states that Witkoff and Kushner met Araghchi on September 22 and incorporates that meeting into its market context.
So the event PG-0008 was forecasting has occurred.
What PG-0008 got right — and what it didn't
This is an important distinction for our track record.
ProbGap did not predict that the meeting was likely.
Our forecast was still only 24%.
In other words, we believed the most likely outcome remained no qualifying meeting by September 30.
But we also believed the market's 14% probability was too low.
The meeting occurring does not prove that 24% was the “correct” probability — a single binary outcome can never establish that.
It does, however, give us another resolved observation for evaluating ProbGap against the market over time.
That's why we publish the numbers before the outcome is known.
From 14% to reality
At publication:
Market — 14%
ProbGap — 24%
Gap — +10 pp
Outcome:
YES
The interesting part isn't simply that ProbGap was higher than the market.
It's that the diplomatic window the market treated as a significant longshot materialized almost immediately.
And the story may not be finished.
Trump says another meeting is expected in the near future.
We'll keep tracking the broader U.S.–Iran diplomatic markets from here.
Same facts. A clearer view.