Um, Stranger Things viewers blew $14m betting on the extra episode that never happened

In the last few days, the entire Stranger Things fandom (me included) has been hooked on the “conformity gate” rumours and theories about an extra episode. But, it was meant to drop yesterday. It never did. I think we all secretly knew it wasn’t going to be a thing, but just chose to believe it anyway.

But some went even further, and placed bets on the additional Stranger Things episode dropping. A huge $14million was lost by viewers thinking it would, and then it didn’t. Yikes indeed.

After the season five finale aired on 27th December, a rumour emerged on TikTok claiming that it wasn’t actually the last episode. It said instead, a ninth one was coming on 7th January. People starting putting together serious “evidence” that the show wasn’t actually over.

“There’s a rumour that a secret Stranger Things episode called Conformity Gate that’s supposed to drop January 7th. Here’s the ‘proof’. What do you think?,” one viral tweet said.

There’s a rumor that a secret Stranger Things episode called Conformity Gate that’s supposed to drop January 7th. Here’s the “proof”. What do you think? pic.twitter.com/Je5F4aEXbe

— Shilo Joslin (@ShiloJoslin) January 5, 2026

According to conformity gate, the epilogue we saw at the end of Stranger Things was actually a mental trick played by Vecna. The theory said the extra episode was coming, after a post from Netflix said “#whatnext”. When you searched the hashtag on Netflix, or if you searched “season five episode nine”, it brought up Stranger Things.

Look, we were there. We all believed it. But nothing happened. Conformity Gate as an episode was just a myth.

On the gambling app Polymarket, there was a market set up to bet on the extra Stranger Things episode. It was titled: “New Stranger Things episode released by…?”, and listed January 7th, and two other dates as options to put money on.

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The most popular was January 7th, with over $14.1 million in bets. This was despite it having less than a one per cent probability. In total, the market has received over $15million in bets.

I’m gutted for them, really. It might have been a wild leap, but as one tweet summed up: “Well at least we went crazy together.”

Stranger Things is on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.