#prediction-markets

#prediction-markets

Free groceries, courtesy of your favorite prediction market. That's the stunt that both Kalshi and Polymarket are attempting to pull off in New York City, in an apparent nod to Mayor Zohran Mamdani's pledge to open city-run grocery stores. Kalshi's offering arrived first, offering shoppers up to $50 worth of free groceries at Westside Market, a grocery store in Manhattan's East Village on Tuesday. Business Insider attended the event and found a long line.

The concept is familiar to anyone who has watched the surge of US "event contracts" over the last year, contracts priced like probabilities rather than traditional odds. What is new is the attempt to package that format within the UK's established gambling framework, and to do so within a business that already uses exchange-style pricing. The timing also lands amid a tightening tax backdrop for remote gambling and a regulatory debate in the US about where trading ends and wagering begins.

A new prediction markets startup with strong ties to billionaire Thomas Peterffy is hiring staff and preparing to launch, job postings and corporate filings reviewed by Business Inside show. Lumina Markets began advertising last week for roles in marketing and legal. Job listings say it's "backed by a billionaire pioneer of electronic trading," and note that it's preparing to launch a new prediction markets platform. The jobs were posted on LinkedIn by an employee at Interactive Brokers, the trading giant founded by Peterffy.

At leading prediction market Kalshi, more than $47 million has been staked this season on what are known as NFL announcer mention markets, where users trade on the probability of what the play-by-play broadcaster or color analyst will -- or will not -- say during games. Since September, the average amount risked on NFL announcer mention markets has grown more than seven times, from less than half a million per game at the start of the season to $3.55 million on the AFC and NFC championship games

It appears that ads from companies like Polymarket or Kalshi will not air during the upcoming Super Bowl. According to the NFL, the league placed prediction market commercials under its "prohibited categories" for Super Bowl advertising on February 8. As reported by Front Office Sports, prediction markets now sit under the same category as tobacco, pornography, firearms, "and other controversial subjects."

Includes prediction markets in the definition of gambling by specifying that the purchase, sale, or financial speculation of securities or commodities on the outcome or future contingent events related to sports, contests, people, politics, catastrophe, and death.

Sometime in the early 1970s, a young Rick Rieder sat in his elementary school cafeteria, not eating. Instead, he stared at his lunch money-a quarter-and weighed the probability of an Oakland Raiders victory. He would obsess over microdata, like how the football team played on turf versus grass, searching for a marginal edge that would turn his 25 cents into 50. Then, he'd bet. When he lost, he went hungry, he told podcaster and author William Green.

Polymarket bettors correctly predicted nearly the entire slate of Golden Globe winners last week, prompting a celebration from Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan. "We have a long way to go to educate the public on the value of market-based forecasts, but you can't deny its accuracy," Coplan wrote. "People have more clarity about the world because Polymarket exists."

The publisher worked with tech startup company Axiom (Axiom founder and CEO Jeff Yam is a Forbes board member) to build its own prediction platform - Forbes Predict - which will launch in beta in February. Unlike real-money prediction markets like Kalshi or Polymarket, Forbes' platform lets readers make forecasts and track results in exchange for tokens. It's designed for engagement, not wagers.

The NCAA asked a federal regulatory body Wednesday to stop prediction markets from offering trades on college sports until more safeguards are in place. In a letter addressed to the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets, NCAA president Charlie Baker said the growth of prediction markets poses a threat to the well-being of student-athletes as well as the integrity of competition. "I implore you to suspend collegiate sport prediction markets until a more robust system with appropriate safeguards is in place," Baker wrote.

For most Americans, every home purchase is a bit of a gamble. Is now the right time to jump into the market? Can I haggle on the price a bit more? What if mortgage rates drop in a few months? These questions have always made buying a new place feel a little like hitting the blackjack table. For the better part of a century, these implicit bets on future real

Dow Jones said Wednesday it has entered an exclusive partnership with Polymarket to distribute real-time prediction market data across its consumer news platforms, marking a big and mainstream expansion of alternative market signals into some of the most widely read financial publications in the world. Under the agreement, Polymarket's prediction data will appear across Dow Jones digital properties, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and Investor's Business Daily.

Enten began by telling anchor Sara Sidner, I will just note it is never, never too early to talk about this because these guys are running already, even if they haven't formally declared. They're already running, and JD Vance is running well ahead of the field. I mean, take a look here. Top chances to be the 2028 GOP press nominee, the prediction market odds.

In this episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel explores the burgeoning industry of prediction markets. These platforms let people wager on everything from elections and award shows to the most trivial internet ephemera, framing bets as tradable "shares" that rise and fall like stocks. With billions in weekly trading volume, massive new funding rounds, and even a CNN partnership with the prediction-betting platform, Kalshi, prediction markets are quickly moving from niche curiosity to mainstream-media fixture-openly touting ambitions to financialize everything.

Robinhood is betting that its customers want to trade on absolutely everything. On Tuesday, the popular stock-trading app unveiled a slate of updates to its prediction markets business, aggressively expanding into sports. Now, Robinhood users can trade contracts tied to specific professional football players' performances, as well as pre-packaged combos for individual games. Early next year, customers will be able to combine up to ten outcomes - such as winners, spreads, and totals - into a single, custom-built contract.