Time Person of the Year 2026 Odds: Who Will Be Named?
Favorite: Zohran Mamdani (+180)
Value pick: Pope Leo XIV (+525)
Claim Up to $250 Free Bet at BetOnlineTime Person of the Year 2026 is about a month away, and the betting market looks nothing like it did in the spring. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is the favorite at +180 at BetOnline, ahead of newly elected Texas Senator James Talarico at +350 and Pope Leo XIV at +525. Back in March, Donald Trump was the clear favorite.
This page covers the latest Time Person of the Year odds, how the market has moved this year, the case for every serious contender, how TIME makes its pick, and every past winner, including the 2025 Person of the Year.
Odds from BetOnline as of November 5, 2026.
Time Person of the Year 2026 Odds
| Contender | Odds | Implied probability |
|---|---|---|
| Zohran Mamdani | +180 | 35.7% |
| James Talarico | +350 | 22.2% |
| Pope Leo XIV | +525 | 16.0% |
| Mark Carney | +600 | 14.3% |
| Abdul El-Sayed | +700 | 12.5% |
| Donald Trump | +1200 | 7.7% |
| Dario Amodei | +1200 | 7.7% |
| AI | +1600 | 5.9% |
| Jon Ossoff | +1600 | 5.9% |
| ChatGPT | +2200 | 4.3% |
| Marco Rubio | +2500 | 3.8% |
| Elon Musk | +2500 | 3.8% |
| Sam Altman | +2800 | 3.4% |
| Taylor Swift | +2800 | 3.4% |
| Reid Wiseman | +2800 | 3.4% |
| Bad Bunny | +3300 | 2.9% |
| Jeremy Hansen | +3300 | 2.9% |
| Christina Koch | +3300 | 2.9% |
| Victor Glover | +3300 | 2.9% |
| Benjamin Netanyahu | +3300 | 2.9% |
| Shehbaz Sharif | +4000 | 2.4% |
| Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | +4000 | 2.4% |
| Jerome Powell | +5000 | 2.0% |
| Vladimir Zelensky | +5000 | 2.0% |
| Peter Magyar | +5000 | 2.0% |
Implied probability shows the chance the odds suggest, before the sportsbook’s margin. In a market this open, the margin is big: the full board adds up to about 176%.
When Is Time Person of the Year 2026 Announced?
TIME usually announces Person of the Year in the first half of December. The 2025 pick was revealed on December 11, and the 2024 pick on December 12. Expect the 2026 announcement around the same time. TIME tends to publish a shortlist a day or two beforehand, and that can move the odds sharply.
How the Time Person of the Year Odds Have Moved
When we first priced this market in March, it looked completely different. Here’s how the main names have moved since:
| Contender | March 2026 | November 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Zohran Mamdani | +700 | +180 |
| James Talarico | +1400 or bigger | +350 |
| Pope Leo XIV | +1400 or bigger | +525 |
| Mark Carney | +1400 or bigger | +600 |
| Abdul El-Sayed | +1400 or bigger | +700 |
| Donald Trump | +250 | +1200 |
| AI | +600 | +1600 |
| Elon Musk | +1000 | +2500 |
| Marco Rubio | +1200 | +2500 |
| Sam Altman | +1000 | +2800 |
| Taylor Swift | +1000 | +2800 |
| Vladimir Zelensky | +800 | +5000 |
The biggest drop belongs to Trump. He was the clear favorite in March at +250, an implied 28.6%, and he has drifted out to +1200. The AI options have gone the same way. “AI” was +600 in March, but the market has since decided that TIME won’t repeat its 2025 theme.
Mamdani has gone from +700 to favorite, and four names that weren’t even among the leading prices in March are now in the top five.
Two of those four, Talarico and El-Sayed, won Senate races on Tuesday, and the midterms have clearly reshaped this market. The question for bettors is whether TIME’s editors will see it the same way, because history says they don’t usually reward a midterm result (more on that below).
One name has dropped off the board completely. David Attenborough was +800 in March, ahead of his 100th birthday in May, and BetOnline no longer prices him.
The Leading Contenders
Zohran Mamdani: +180
Mamdani has been the national story of New York politics since his upset mayoral win in 2025, and he took office on January 1. His profile has kept growing all year, well beyond New York, and that’s why he leads the market at an implied 35.7%.
The question for bettors is timing. Mamdani’s breakthrough moment, winning the election, came last year, and TIME didn’t pick him then. +180 is a short price for someone whose defining moment has already passed.
James Talarico: +350
Talarico has the freshest story on the board. On Tuesday he beat Ken Paxton to flip a Texas Senate seat, and he’s the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Texas since 1988. He’s 37, a former teacher and seminarian, and he has gone from state representative to national figure in a single year.
Pope Leo XIV: +525
This is our value pick. Leo XIV became the first American pope in May 2025, and 2026 is his first full year in the job. TIME has picked a new pope before: Pope Francis was named Person of the Year in 2013, his first year as pope. Leo lost out to AI in 2025, the year he was elected, and he’s the kind of global figure TIME’s editors keep coming back to. At +525, he’s a solid price.
Mark Carney: +600
Canada’s prime minister has climbed the market through the fall, and at +600 he’s the leading non-American option. TIME hasn’t chosen a Canadian leader before, but a world leader at the center of a big international story is a classic Person of the Year profile.
Abdul El-Sayed: +700
El-Sayed won Michigan’s Senate race on Tuesday, beating Mike Rogers to hold the seat for Democrats. The 42-year-old former Michigan health official becomes the first Muslim elected to the US Senate, which is a historic first that TIME will notice.
Donald Trump: +1200
Trump has won Person of the Year twice, in 2016 and 2024. A third win would put him in rare company. With Democrats taking control of the House in January and impeachment talk building, he’ll be in the headlines through December. TIME has already picked him twice in the past decade, though, and that’s the main reason for the long price.
AI, ChatGPT and the AI Leaders
Four AI options are on the board: Dario Amodei at +1200, “AI” at +1600, ChatGPT at +2200 and Sam Altman at +2800. Together they come to about 21% before the margin. The problem is that TIME named the Architects of AI as its 2025 Person of the Year, and it rarely picks the same theme two years running. Amodei is the shortest of the four after Anthropic’s very public standoff with the Pentagon over military use of AI in February.
Jon Ossoff: +1600
Ossoff won re-election in Georgia by about 18 points, and he’s now the favorite in the 2028 Democratic nominee odds. He’s on the board here for the same reason as Talarico and El-Sayed: the midterms put him in front of the whole country.
The Artemis II Crew
Reid Wiseman (+2800), Christina Koch (+3300), Victor Glover (+3300) and Jeremy Hansen (+3300) flew Artemis II, the first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years, splashing down in April. It was a historic mission. Koch became the first woman to fly to the Moon, Glover the first Black astronaut, and Hansen, a Canadian, the first non-American.
There’s a catch. TIME would almost certainly honor the crew together, but BetOnline prices them individually, so check the rules on how a group pick settles before you bet on any one of them.
Longshots
Marco Rubio and Elon Musk are +2500, Taylor Swift +2800, and Bad Bunny and Benjamin Netanyahu +3300. Musk (2021) and Swift (2023) have both won before. Peter Magyar, who ended Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power in Hungary’s April election, is +5000.
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Bet on Time Person of the Year at BetOnlineHow TIME Picks Its Person of the Year
TIME’s editors choose the person, group or idea that most influenced the news over the year, for better or worse. Two patterns matter for betting.
TIME often picks groups. The Architects of AI (2025), Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (2020), The Guardians (2018) and The Silence Breakers (2017) were all group picks. When a group wins, how your bet settles depends on the sportsbook’s rules, so read them first.
TIME rarely picks midterm winners. In midterm years, TIME has gone elsewhere: Volodymyr Zelensky and the Spirit of Ukraine in 2022, The Guardians in 2018, the Ebola Fighters in 2014 and Mark Zuckerberg in 2010. That’s a real warning for this market, because three of the top nine prices (Talarico, El-Sayed and Ossoff) are midterm winners, and together they come to about 41% before the margin.
Time Person of the Year 2025
The 2025 Time Person of the Year was the Architects of AI, the group of tech leaders building artificial intelligence. It was announced on December 11, 2025. It was the latest in a long run of non-individual picks, and it’s the main reason the AI options are priced so long this year.
Past Time Person of the Year Winners
| Year | Person of the Year |
|---|---|
| 2025 | The Architects of AI |
| 2024 | Donald Trump |
| 2023 | Taylor Swift |
| 2022 | Volodymyr Zelensky and the Spirit of Ukraine |
| 2021 | Elon Musk |
| 2020 | Joe Biden and Kamala Harris |
| 2019 | Greta Thunberg |
| 2018 | The Guardians |
| 2017 | The Silence Breakers |
| 2016 | Donald Trump |
| 2015 | Angela Merkel |
How to Bet on Time Person of the Year
State-licensed sportsbooks in the US don’t offer entertainment or political specials like this, so you won’t find Time Person of the Year odds on the big domestic apps. Offshore sportsbooks like BetOnline do.
Choose a sportsbook from the list below, sign up, and make a first deposit to claim the welcome bonus. The Time Person of the Year market sits with the specials, usually under Entertainment or Politics in the sports menu. Choose your contender, enter your stake, and confirm.
This market settles on TIME’s official announcement in December. Check the rules for how group picks are settled before you bet, because that’s where most disputes happen. For more political markets, see our guide on how to bet on politics.
Where to Bet on Time Person of the Year
Our odds on this page come from BetOnline, but all of these sportsbooks accept US players and offer entertainment and specials markets, plus a welcome bonus for new players.
