Who Will Die in Avengers: Doomsday? The Characters Most Likely to Fall
Marvel has spent nearly two decades teaching audiences that death is negotiable (ask Loki, who has been killed on screen three times and still got two seasons of television out of it). Real money is now calling that bluff. On Polymarket, traders are putting actual dollars on who will die in Avengers: Doomsday when it opens December 18, 2026, and as of September 1 the board makes Ant-Man the most likely casualty at a 64% implied chance, with Loki close behind at 59.5% and Thor, Spider-Man, and Steve Rogers all trading in the 40s. August’s runaway favorite, Doctor Strange, just crashed from 66% to 41% overnight.
Every one of those numbers has a story behind it: a verified casting fact, a trailer tease, or a leak that may be complete fiction. Marvel has confirmed exactly zero deaths, which is precisely why a betting market is the most honest way to read the tea leaves. A price never pretends to be certain. It just tells you what the crowd believes, and right now the crowd believes Scott Lang should get his affairs in order.
What Do the Avengers: Doomsday Death Odds Say Right Now?
Ant-Man is the most likely character to die in Avengers: Doomsday at a 64% implied chance, according to the live Polymarket board captured on September 1, 2026. Loki sits at 59.5%, Thor at 47.5%, Spider-Man at 45.5%, and Steve Rogers at 42%, while Doctor Doom himself trades at a sleepy 7.5%. Here is the full board, with the best live bid and ask behind each headline number.
| Character | Implied Chance of Dying | Best Bid / Ask | Volume Traded |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ant-Man | 64.0% | 37¢ / 91¢ | $5,563 |
| Loki | 59.5% | 56¢ / 63¢ | $3,299 |
| Thor | 47.5% | 45¢ / 50¢ | $2,331 |
| Spider-Man | 45.5% | 40¢ / 51¢ | $3,615 |
| Steve Rogers | 42.0% | 27¢ / 57¢ | $6,002 |
| Doctor Strange | 41.0% | 37¢ / 45¢ | $2,066 |
| Captain America (Sam Wilson) | 40.5% | 23¢ / 58¢ | $1,072 |
| Shang-Chi | 36.5% | 14¢ / 59¢ | $304 |
| Doctor Doom | 7.5% | 5¢ / 10¢ | $569 |
Two mechanical notes before you quote these numbers at a watch party. First, each character is a separate yes-or-no market, and several characters can die in the same movie, so the percentages are not supposed to add up to 100. Second, this is a small pond: roughly $24,800 in lifetime volume across all nine characters, and quoted spreads 20 cents wide or more on several legs, which is why the bid and ask columns are up there at all. The headline example: Doctor Strange showed 66% every day from August 24 through August 31, then repriced to 41% overnight into September 1 without a single dollar of new volume on the leg. In a book this thin, a crash can be one quote-setter blinking. Treat every figure as a crowd estimate with a wide error bar, not a Vegas line that heavy betting has hammered into shape.
How Does a Movie Death Market Actually Settle?
Each character market settles Yes only if that character dies in the initial theatrical cut of Avengers: Doomsday, under written rules that are stricter than any fan debate. The fine print, straight from the market’s resolution terms:
- A death counts if the character is shown dead on screen or the death is clearly stated, even offscreen. A funeral counts. A line of dialogue confirming it counts.
- Resurrections do not undo it. If a character dies and gets revived before the credits roll, the market still resolves Yes.
- Any timeline counts. A death in any dimension or timeline depicted in the film qualifies.
- Ambiguity pays No. A fate left deliberately unclear resolves No, so cliffhangers give the doomsayers nothing.
- The theatrical cut is the whole universe. Post-credits scenes count; tie-in comics, podcasts, and interviews do not.
- Hard deadline: if the film somehow misses theaters by January 31, 2027, every character market resolves No.
Those rules bend the prices in ways casual readers miss. The resurrection clause inflates the Yes side for characters likely to get a heroic fake-out, because a reversed death still pays. The ambiguity clause deflates characters headed for a cliffhanger, because “presumed dead” is worth nothing. If event contracts are new to you, our guide to how event contract settlement works walks through the standard traps, and our prediction markets hub covers the mechanics from the ground up.
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Popcorn Money Only
Movie death markets carry a risk sports betting does not: information leaks. Scripts circulate, test screenings happen, and the trader on the other side of your order may have read a breakdown you have not. Combine that with thin liquidity and you have a market to enjoy in entertainment-sized amounts, never a market to attack with conviction.
The Chopping Block: Who Is Most Likely to Die in Avengers: Doomsday?
The market’s top five as of September 1: Ant-Man, Loki, Thor, Spider-Man, and Steve Rogers. Here is what is driving each price, and how much of it is actually confirmed.
Ant-Man: 64%
Scott Lang is officially in the movie, and Kevin Feige has publicly cast him as the elder statesman of the newer heroes. That framing is exactly what makes traders nervous. Marvel loves spending its most human hero at the moment of maximum emotional damage, and the scooper accounts that fan sites like SuperHeroHype track have floated Lang on multiple death lists this summer. None of it is confirmed, and Paul Rudd has stayed cheerfully unhelpful in every interview. The price has moved anyway: Ant-Man traded in the high 30s in late July, has held the low 60s since late August, and now tops the board at 64%. One honesty note on the new crown: the live quotes behind it are 37 bid and 91 ask, with the last actual trade printed at 30 cents, so the throne sits on a very thin cushion. Either somebody believes the leaks, or the crowd has simply decided the funniest Avenger is the most killable one.
Loki: 59.5%
The scooper account MyTimeToShineHello claims Doctor Doom wipes out the entire TVA in this movie, Loki included, and a follow-up report put Loki at only two or three scenes. Treat both claims as rumors, because that is all they are. The story logic is still uncomfortable. Loki ended his series holding the multiverse together at the base of a very large tree, and a villain who wants to rearrange reality has one obvious first stop. Here is the wrinkle casual money might be missing: Loki has already died on screen three times, and under this market’s rules even a death that gets reversed before the credits still pays Yes. The price has ground steadily higher, from 51 cents in mid-August to just under 60 now, and unlike most of this board the quotes behind it are tight (56 bid, 63 ask). That makes Loki the most trustworthy big number here; the distance from 100 is the market pricing the chance that the TVA story is simply not true.
Thor: 47.5%
With Steve Rogers’ return billed as a comeback event, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is the one original Avenger who never left the active roster, and that puts a target on his winged helmet by default. The funny part is that the loudest rumors point the other way: August’s rumor roundups describe Thor fighting alongside an army of fallen Asgardians, which reads like a hero surviving to be helped, not a corpse. The price reflects the confusion. Polymarket’s history shows Thor trading everywhere from 37 to 55 cents over the past month before settling at 47.5% now. When a market chops around like that with no official news, the crowd is guessing. A Thor death would be the biggest end-of-an-era swing Marvel could take short of killing Spider-Man, and the market calls it just short of a coin flip.
Spider-Man: 45.5%
This is the strangest number on the board, because Tom Holland is not on the official cast list at all (still true as of September 1; we re-checked). Marvel’s own D23 coverage from mid-August runs through the cast top to bottom, more than 30 names deep, and Holland is not one of them. Meanwhile Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which opened July 31, 2026 to a record-shattering debut, ends with a credits scene that tracks Peter Parker to space and promises his return; Variety’s breakdown of that scene notes Holland is not on the announced Doomsday call sheet either. So the death market is secretly a two-part bet: Spider-Man has to appear in this movie before he can die in it. A 45-cent price on an unannounced character means traders are fairly confident he shows up and genuinely split on whether the space cliffhanger ends at a graveside. Worth weighing against that: fan-press roundups, SuperHeroHype among them, reported that an earlier rumored Spider-Man death claim had been walked back. Unconfirmed, like everything else.
Steve Rogers: 42%
The return is fully official: Chris Evans took the stage at D23 in mid-August alongside Robert Downey Jr. and Hayley Atwell, teased that Steve nearly got his happy ending at the end of Endgame, and added, “We should’ve known better” (Marvel’s own event coverage carries the exchange). You do not un-retire a legend who danced off into the sunset unless something dramatic is planned for him, and traders have made Steve the most traded name on the board at about $6,000 in volume. The price has bounced between 30 and 44 cents for three straight weeks and sits at 42% now. The crowd seems to think the tragic Steve Rogers beat lands in Secret Wars instead, or that the Russos have something stranger than a funeral in mind.
The Middle of the Board: Doctor Strange, Sam Wilson, and Shang-Chi
The market prices Doctor Strange at 41%, Captain America (Sam Wilson) at 40.5%, and Shang-Chi at 36.5%: real risk, but short of a coin flip for all three.
Doctor Strange, 41%: A week ago this was the market’s favorite casualty at 66%, and the case wrote itself: Marvel has never officially announced Benedict Cumberbatch for this movie, the actor first said he was sitting it out, then reversed himself and admitted he had gotten that wrong, and fan circles expect a variant of Strange rather than the one who cracked the multiverse open in No Way Home. Studios do not play coy about a character who waves and leaves. None of that has changed; the price has. Strange repriced from 66% to 41% overnight into September 1 with zero new volume behind the move, which says less about the sorcerer and more about the order book. If real money follows the markdown, believe it. Until then, he is the board’s biggest question mark.
Captain America (Sam Wilson), 40.5%: Anthony Mackie’s Cap leads the Avengers now, and fan prediction lists adore a leader’s sacrifice. The counterargument is business. Marvel spent an entire 2025 solo film rebuilding Sam as the franchise’s flag-carrier, and studios rarely torch a rebuild eighteen months in. The market leans survive, barely.
Shang-Chi, 36.5%: Simu Liu is officially in the cast, and this is his first team-up movie. Killing a hero on his first group outing would be unusual even for a studio that loves a shock exit, and his corner of the universe still has obvious unfinished business. This is also the thinnest market on the board, about $300 traded, so read that 36.5% as a shrug with a decimal point.
Why Is Doctor Doom Only 7.5% to Die?
Because the market believes the release calendar. Robert Downey Jr. was announced for two Avengers films, and Avengers: Secret Wars arrives December 17, 2027, so traders price Doom as the rare character with contractual job security. The comics agree. In the 2015 Secret Wars story this slate is clearly borrowing from, Doom’s arc peaks after reality collapses, when he rules what remains of it. If the movies follow even the outline of that plot, Doomsday is Doom’s origin as an existential threat, not his exit.
One honest caution before anyone treats 7.5% as settled law: under the resolution rules, a death that gets reversed still pays Yes. If the Russos hand Doom a dramatic on-screen death in the final act and resurrect him for the tag, the No side loses on a technicality. That is the specific trap buried in the board’s most confident price.
Who Isn’t on the Board? Bucky, the X-Men, and the Rest of the Rumor Mill
Polymarket prices only nine characters, so the names dominating this summer’s leak lists have no market at all. That gap matters, because the rumor mill’s favorite candidates are mostly people you cannot trade:
- Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan): the fan lists’ favorite casualty all summer, with no contract to buy or sell
- The Fantastic Four and the legacy X-Men: front and center in the D23 trailer and all over the leak lists, entirely unpriced
- Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and the Thunderbolts: beloved, rumored about, and absent from the board
A late-July leak that spread across fan sites claimed to be a detailed breakdown of the whole movie, death list included: Nightcrawler, Mystique, Loki, and Bucky among them. Marvel has confirmed none of it, later reports contradicted parts of it, and the responsible way to file it is fan fiction until proven otherwise. Meanwhile Hugh Jackman crashed Marvel’s D23 presentation by video to beg for a spot in the cast, which is either a good joke or the most expensive misdirection of the year. The board prices the headliners and leaves the deep cuts to the message boards.
Can You Actually Bet on Who Dies in Avengers: Doomsday?
Yes. The death markets trade on Polymarket, which serves US customers through its federally regulated exchange; our Polymarket review covers how the venue works, what it costs, and what changed with its US return. Kalshi does not list a death market that we could find, but it runs a whole series of Doomsday appearance markets, including legs on Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, and Hugh Jackman showing up in the film at all. Choosing between the two venues is its own question, and our Kalshi vs Polymarket comparison settles it in detail.
Be honest with yourself about what this is, though. A novelty market with roughly $25,000 of lifetime volume is entertainment, and the information game is tilted in ways sports betting is not: scripts leak, test screenings exist, and post-production is full of people who know the ending. The right stake on whether Ant-Man lives is popcorn money. If watching live odds move on pop culture is your idea of a good time (it is certainly ours), this is a golden age for it; we ran the same live-market breakdown on the TIME Person of the Year race, where the trading is considerably deeper.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the questions fans and traders keep asking about the Doomsday death watch.
Who is most likely to die in Avengers: Doomsday, according to the betting markets?
Ant-Man, per Polymarket. As of September 1, 2026, his death market shows a 64% implied chance, ahead of Loki at 59.5% and Thor at 47.5%, while August favorite Doctor Strange has slipped to 41%. Marvel has confirmed nothing; those are crowd prices on a real-money market, not studio statements.
Are Steve Rogers and Thor going to die in Avengers: Doomsday, or will they make it to Secret Wars?
Nobody knows, and the market is split. Thor trades just short of a coin flip at 47.5%, while Steve Rogers sits at 42% and is the most heavily traded name on the board. Both actors are officially in the film, and traders seem to expect the biggest legacy farewells to land in Avengers: Secret Wars in December 2027 rather than here.
Is Bucky Barnes really dying in Avengers: Doomsday, or is that just a rumor?
It is just a rumor. Bucky appears on leaked death lists circulating on fan sites, but Marvel has confirmed no deaths at all, and Polymarket does not even list a Bucky Barnes market. Every specific death claim out there right now traces back to unverified scooper reports.
Will Doctor Doom die in Avengers: Doomsday even though he is the villain of Secret Wars?
The market says almost certainly not: his death trades at just 7.5%. Robert Downey Jr. was announced for both this film and Avengers: Secret Wars, which arrives December 17, 2027, so traders are betting the villain survives his own introduction the way his comic counterpart did in the 2015 Secret Wars story.
Can I bet real money on who dies in Avengers: Doomsday, and is that legal in the US?
Yes. The death markets are event contracts on Polymarket, which serves US customers through a federally regulated exchange, and Kalshi lists related markets on which actors appear in the film. Age and eligibility rules apply, prices swing hard in small markets, and a wager this speculative belongs firmly in the entertainment budget.
