“Welcome to the DraftKings Polymarket FanDuel Kalshi Half-Time show! Before talking about the big game, let’s all speculate on the outcome… financially!”
It seems no matter where you turn these days, there’s a chance to bet on just about anything.
Will the Bills fire their head coach?
Will the US invade Australia?
What fun! While we may not get to control many aspects of our lives, at least we can bet on them! Where’s the harm? I mean after all, I love to gamble.
America has a long history of betting. Horse races. Casinos. None of that is new. What has changed in the past decade or so is the gamblification (trademarking this now) of everything.
No longer do you need to make a trip to a fancy resort to play some slots. You can do it on your phone! Blazing 7s not your game? Fear not! You can also bet on international instability!
Sites like Polymarket and Kalshi allow individuals to place bets on anything from your favorite celebrity breakups to political unrest halfway across the world. According to an article in the New York Times, “Nearly $12 billion was traded on Kalshi and Polymarket in December, up more than 400 percent from a year earlier.”
For most of our lifetimes, sports betting was largely illegal inside the United States. But in 2018, the Supreme Court ruled the ban was unconstitutional, opening the doors to a plethora of parlay opportunities. The rise of sites like FanDuel and DraftKings allowed armchair quarterbacks around the nation to finally get some skin in the game while watching their favorites teams. Ok, fine. Surely we can be responsible enough to throw a few dollars on some football games, right?
Turns out most people aren’t great at setting limits when it comes to gambling, especially when in the comfort of their own homes. Add to that the rampant spread of game-fixing that has dominated sports news headlines over the past year. We know book makers have always had ways to put their thumbs on the scale, but with billions of dollars changing hands daily, the drive to cheat or fix games has become a big business.
Now enter “Prediction Markets”. Sports seasons come and go, but things like politics persist. Originally rising into the spotlight as a way to bet on elections, these sites now have something for everyone. Sure, there’s still sports. Last week Kalshi had over $100 million bet on a single game. But the bets being placed on world events is impacting far more than people’s pocketbooks.
News sites now share articles saying things like “49% chance Trump makes a deal on Greenland (via PolyMarket).” According to an article from NPR “CNN and CNBC have struck deals to incorporate Kalshi prediction markets into coverage. The Wall Street Journal’s owner, Dow Jones, is partnering with Polymarket, as did the Golden Globe awards this year, with announcers updating viewers on Polymarket odds before every commercial break.”
Tarek Mansour, who co-founded Kalshi in 2018, said in an interview “People don’t lie when money’s involved. You want to be right about your predictions so you don’t lose money.”
A user on PolyMarket bet $32,000 that Venezuela’s Maduro would be toppled by the end of January. The bet was placed just hours before President Trump ordered the operation. The bet netted more then $436k in profit.
Who was the bettor? We don’t know. Thanks to cryptocurrency, accounts have become nearly impossible to trace. Could it have been an insider? Sounds likely, no?
So what if I created a bet for something insane like “Will the US invade the moon?”
If I’m the only major bettor, the charts would read as though the event is a near certainty. News networks would carry the story and pundits would begin discussing our military options for lunar dominance. If our current president saw these stories and determined there was “overwhelming support” for invading the moon, we’d likely be launching dozens of Elon’s rockets within days. Yes, wildly far-fetched... but see how in today’s society things could get out of hand quickly?
Markets have long been used as a barometer for prediction, but average Joes weren’t the ones moving markets. It was institutions. It was banks. It was wealthy investors. Now it’s driven by a user named something like DonkeyDoug470.
I don’t believe in prohibition when it comes to gambling, but it feels like if we don’t start setting some real guardrails, things will only continue to get worse.
Maybe I’m just being an alarmist. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s a 49% chance I’m wrong.
Wanna bet on it?
