预测市场理论家质疑Kalshi和Polymarket的繁荣

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You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on Bloomberg Radio. Robin Hood, you know, is a has a prediction market. So, it's sort of a good little, you know, indicator.

Uh, they've had a banner year, though. I keep seeing that. Do you see that Timothy Shalomé ad when you're watching the World Cup if he's at the dentist? Have you seen Chris? Have you seen this thing? I somehow missed it. Okay. The only one.

You're the only one. And you write about predictions,

but you don't really know. Like it's just so odd.

Yeah. He's he's doing this whole marketing campaign with them. Uh tradition uh trading volume on on Kalshi has rocketed from hundreds of millions of dollars per month in early 2025 to more than $18 billion in May.

It's real.

Poly market has also seen rapid growth. Both platforms are mired in lawsuits with state regulators who accuse them of offering illegal gambling. Yet, the CFTC has come to their defense, arguing that trading doesn't amount to gambling, a position the companies hold, too.

All right, so in other words, as Bloomberg Business Week senior writer Chris Beam writes, "It's never been a better time for someone trying to bet on the world." Chris joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Um, Chris, good to have you here. Maybe, uh, as you write, it's never been a better time for someone to bet on the world. Like, tell us what's going on here. Um well, you know, for all the controversy that Cali and Poly Market are generating, they just keep growing.

Um you know, we're seeing uh more people trading and um we're seeing uh growth inside the US and especially um in areas that are outside sports. So we've we have this uh trend

maybe never a better time to bet on these companies. It almost feels like but go ahead.

Well, yeah. Um I mean so sports have become the sort of dominant uh area that you can bet on um in on your poly market, but they're pointing out that that dominance is slowly ebbing that um other areas like politics and and crypto and other things are growing. So, I I want to get to your recent story in Bloomberg Business Week that is just it's it's so great because I had no idea there were the purists out there for the prediction market, but you actually went to this gathering where you spent some time with folks who uh say that prediction markets can actually be a force for good in the world.

But these are folks who say, "Yeah, if we get the sports out of it,

what's left?" Mhm. Exactly. And and prediction markets love to talk about this too, like the the platforms, they say, "Yeah, bet on the next Fed decision."

Hedge your in, you know, insurance companies can hedge their bets based on, you know, by betting on weather, those sorts of things, right?

But compared to what happens versus sports, it's pretty small.

Yeah. So, so this conference that I went to is an annual gathering in Berkeley of, as you say, prediction market purists. basically people who've been following the space for decades back to the 1980s way before anyone knew

I didn't realize it was that old but anyway

oh yeah and and you know underlying uh the original prediction markets was this idea that a group of people betting on an event will be better at predicting what happens than any individual and they see that as a force for good like a public good that it'll help people make better decisions and and plan their lives. Can you give us an example of like a public good that would be the result of a prediction market?

Well, I mean a a very simple example is is just predicting using prediction markets to bet on interest rates. You know, what is the Federal Reserve going to do next quarter?

But but don't we have markets for that already?

Yes, definitely. Um, so you know some prediction mark there have been studies that show that prediction markets are as accurate and in some cases better than the other forecasters that we already have out there. So in that case it's just another tool. But you could talk about weather events, you could talk about um elections and what like global geopolitical outcomes.

I guess I would say that like so much has been institutionalized, right? So like opening up something to the masses. I do wonder whether or not we get a much more balanced view on something whether it's rates, whether it's elections. We certainly saw that play out um in terms of prediction markets, but I do wonder about is it a broader better set of data?

Well, they certainly argue that it is or they they argue that it's as good as anything we have and therefore we should be considering them in our decision-m. So how do the folks at this this conference feel about the rise of poly market and kshi?

Uh they're not psyched about it. Um I mean fundamentally they think that prediction markets are a better source of information than anything else we have and they're disappointed that ki and poly market are predominantly uh betting on sports.

I'm I'm curious about digging in a little more to this group. you make the point in the piece that there are some connections to uh Sam Alman, Sam Bankman Freed and I think to myself, okay, wait, is this effective altruism that we're talking about? Is there a ven diagram with these prediction market purists and and the folks who think about effective altruism?

Yeah, there's a lot of overlap. I'd say the sort of umbrella category here is rationalists. Okay. Which is sort of a Silicon Valley group that is dedicated to um kind of analyzing the world through data and probabilistic thinking in an attempt uh as they would probably put it to make the world a better place. Obviously you mentioned Sam Bankman Freed sometimes uh those best intentions can go ary but there's a lot of overlap um within the rationalists between the effective altruists and uh and also people who are excited about prediction markets

because it's interesting you do talk about their ideas have inspired Sam Alman Dario Ammedday uh Sam Begmanfried Elon Musk but it it's interesting to see how some things evolve as we get into kind of the capitalistic side of this Right. And the business side of all of this.

Yeah. I I So that's why I would draw a distinction between, as I say, like the purists, the people who are ideologically um and kind of philosophically interested in prediction markets and how they can play a role in society versus people who just want to make money by making better bets on the future than other people. They're also betting on what what what about mentioned markets and the things that get a lot of attention now?

You know, remember when Fed Chair Jay Pal was asked by that Harvard class uh a few months ago what he was going to say at the next Fed meeting and it was clearly a question to get him to, you know, help him with a prediction market. Um what what do what do they say about mention markets?

I think most even the the staunchest defenders of prediction markets probably wouldn't say that mention markets have a real social utility. uh it is kind of the closest thing to gambling that that you can have out there. Sure, there are some examples of mentioned markets where you can bet on say uh the words coming out of Jerome Powell's mouth or um if Trump is going to say you know tariff or Iran or uh ceasefire like sure you can argue that some of those mentioned markets might have some sort of uh broader social implication but for the most part it doesn't really matter.

Mhm.

There are romantic prediction markets. Well, there's also things that maybe people wouldn't argue as romantic, but events occurring at certain conferences that I I'm just going to say you have to read Chris's piece to

there's so much in

to understand what people at the conference were betting on. And it was it has to do with romance, I guess some could say.

Yeah. Or

or is correct.

What? Well, uh, peopl

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