Prediction markets are culturally ascendant. There are now thousands of questions, live around the clock, on which anyone can take a side: Will Ayatollah Ali Khamenei be out as supreme leader of Iran by the end of July? Will the United States confirm that aliens exist?
Before 2020, the only dedicated place you could even try to make a living forecasting current events was a New Zealand-based site called PredictIt, which capped individual bets at $850 and limited the number of traders who could participate in any one market. All that has changed with the rise in the United States of the prediction-market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket.
CNN has formed a partnership with Kalshi, and Google Finance now integrates data from both Kalshi and Polymarket. The CBS telecast of the Golden Globes this month showed graphics of Polymarket's real-time betting odds before winners were announced. The company's founder and CEO, Shayne Coplan, attended the ceremony.
President Donald Trump's second-term administration has been friendly to the industry. Donald Trump Jr is an adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket and an investor in Polymarket. In November, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission signed off on Polymarket's operating legally in the United States. Other investing and betting apps such as Robinhood and FanDuel have been moving into prediction markets, too.
Making a living betting on prediction markets just might be one of those era-defining occupations-like being a Wall Street trader in the 1980s, a dot-com founder in the 1990s or an influencer in the 2010s. There are the young men increasingly drawn into screens and online communities; the breakdown of traditional career paths, and the rise of make-your-bag YOLO-ing into highly speculative investments; the post-trust, post-expert epistemics of mathematical probability and the wisdom of crowds; the contemporary casino-isation of everything. They may have found their ultimate confluence in the full-time predictions trader.
A TV talking head can bluster without consequences; prediction markets, where money hangs on the outcome, are "punditry with skin in the game," said one of the most successful prediction traders, who goes by the handle Domer, and asked that his real name not be published.
The top traders, who call themselves "sharps," tend to be fast-twitch, male risk-takers with quantitative aptitude and above-average information-processing skills. According to one analysis, fewer than 0.04% of addresses on Polymarket account for 70% of profits.
The sharps all have their own ways of finding an edge. Many would most likely thrive on Wall Street but find prediction markets more interesting. They'll become deeply familiar with the legislative process, say, or study climate models, or read niche newsletters.
In exclusive Discord groups, many of them trade information, such as tips on "bonds" - their term for low-risk, low-return bets that, while not as ironclad as US Treasurys, are the prediction-market version of a sure thing. A lot of sharps made money when all 12 of the singles from Taylor Swift's new album charted last year. "Every good person I talk to says this is the bond of the year," said Jonathan Zubkoff, a 34-year-old Long Island trader.
Last year was a good one for the sharps, and this year is even more promising. The chaos generated by Trump means uncertainty, which means more things to bet on. And the explosion of interest in prediction markets-Polymarket had a record 491,000 active monthly traders last month, according to The Block-has meant an influx of naive money from bettors from other domains (e.g., sports) and civilians with a taste for wagering.
Before 2020, the only dedicated place you could even try to make a living forecasting current events was a New Zealand-based site called PredictIt, which capped individual bets at $850 and limited the number of traders who could participate in any one market. All that has changed with the rise in the United States of the prediction-market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket.
CNN has formed a partnership with Kalshi, and Google Finance now integrates data from both Kalshi and Polymarket. The CBS telecast of the Golden Globes this month showed graphics of Polymarket's real-time betting odds before winners were announced. The company's founder and CEO, Shayne Coplan, attended the ceremony.
President Donald Trump's second-term administration has been friendly to the industry. Donald Trump Jr is an adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket and an investor in Polymarket. In November, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission signed off on Polymarket's operating legally in the United States. Other investing and betting apps such as Robinhood and FanDuel have been moving into prediction markets, too.
Making a living betting on prediction markets just might be one of those era-defining occupations-like being a Wall Street trader in the 1980s, a dot-com founder in the 1990s or an influencer in the 2010s. There are the young men increasingly drawn into screens and online communities; the breakdown of traditional career paths, and the rise of make-your-bag YOLO-ing into highly speculative investments; the post-trust, post-expert epistemics of mathematical probability and the wisdom of crowds; the contemporary casino-isation of everything. They may have found their ultimate confluence in the full-time predictions trader.
A TV talking head can bluster without consequences; prediction markets, where money hangs on the outcome, are "punditry with skin in the game," said one of the most successful prediction traders, who goes by the handle Domer, and asked that his real name not be published.
The top traders, who call themselves "sharps," tend to be fast-twitch, male risk-takers with quantitative aptitude and above-average information-processing skills. According to one analysis, fewer than 0.04% of addresses on Polymarket account for 70% of profits.
The sharps all have their own ways of finding an edge. Many would most likely thrive on Wall Street but find prediction markets more interesting. They'll become deeply familiar with the legislative process, say, or study climate models, or read niche newsletters.
In exclusive Discord groups, many of them trade information, such as tips on "bonds" - their term for low-risk, low-return bets that, while not as ironclad as US Treasurys, are the prediction-market version of a sure thing. A lot of sharps made money when all 12 of the singles from Taylor Swift's new album charted last year. "Every good person I talk to says this is the bond of the year," said Jonathan Zubkoff, a 34-year-old Long Island trader.
Last year was a good one for the sharps, and this year is even more promising. The chaos generated by Trump means uncertainty, which means more things to bet on. And the explosion of interest in prediction markets-Polymarket had a record 491,000 active monthly traders last month, according to The Block-has meant an influx of naive money from bettors from other domains (e.g., sports) and civilians with a taste for wagering.
