Humans can make a competition out of anything. Who can walk, run, or swim the fastest? Who plays soccer the best? Who can lift this giant rock the most? Who can throw little pointed sticks the best? Who can eat the most food the fastest?
There’s a world public speaking competition to determine the best speaker in the world. And Orlando just hosted the Southern Fried Poetry Contest to find the best poet.
"How did I humiliate thee? Let me count the ways."
And, because humans are greedy, we will make a wager on anything. Sports? Of course. Awards winners? Absolutely. Election results? Try and stop us!
But other than weird friends to vote on those things with, where can a gambling addict find a place to bet on the outcome of the Ann Arbor Democratic mayoral primary race?
Enter the "prediction market platform" Kalshi, a website and app that lets people "trade on the outcome of world events."
I don’t really care about chess; I just wanted to say "Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa."
You choose Yes or No on whether an event will happen, and the events can be about anything.
Me: I think Taylor Swift will get married at Madison Square Garden this year. (This is an actual trade, by the way.)
You: Oh, yeah? I think they won’t get married at Madison Square Garden this year; they’ll get married in Rhode Island. (A completely different trade.)
Now, rather than making drunken barroom bets with your friends, you can make drunken computer trades based on your opinions and gut feelings about critical current events.
Like whether Emma Stone, Selena Gomez, or Ice Spice will be bridesmaids at Taylor and Travis’ wedding.
I don’t really care about the wedding; I just wanted to say "Ice Spice."
Kalshi has all kinds of categories: sports, politics, the climate, culture, finance, and science and technology. If there’s a way to make money off other people’s misery, misfortune, and sense of doom, Kalshi and competitors like Polymarket are there to make a profit from it.
Will the US and Iran reach a nuclear deal before December? Will there be more than 3,000, 4,000, or 6,000 measles cases this year? Will there be an Ebola pandemic before 2027? You can place bets on any of those questions, and then pray that a bunch of people get sick and die.
Or not.
However, Kalshi insists they have scruples, and there are some markets they will not let people trade in. No war markets, death markets, assassination markets, kidnapping, rocket explosion markets, or missile strike markets. So, see, they’re not completely terrible.
(But you can still place bets on whether thousands of people die from Ebola or Selena Gomez is truly one of Taylor Swift’s good friends.)
Some people have been accused of insider trading on prediction market platforms, however.
My favorite was when ex-Congressman and convicted felon George Santos (R-NY) posted on social media that he would be at the 2026 State of the Union address, after Trump commuted his seven-year sentence for wire fraud and identity theft.
Kalshi was making odds on whether the noted liar would be in the place where 311 of his former colleagues kicked him out. After Santos posted his video message, the odds shot way up that he would be there.
Except he didn’t show.
Not at all.
Wait, what? He said one thing, but did another? I’m shocked! Shocked, I say!
Instead, he posted on Twitter, "Watching SOTU from an airport tv was not part of the plan! FML."
What he didn’t say was that he had already loaded Kalshi up with his own bets that he would not appear at the State of the Union at all.
Kalshi discovered the trades and ratted Santos out to the Department of Justice and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, which opened a probe into possible insider trading. Also, Polymarket cut financial ties with Santos.
When National Public Radio asked Santos about the insider trading probe, he said, "Well, that’s news to me," which means it was, in fact, not news to him.
When they asked whether he had a Kalshi account, he said, "I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no."
Which means, "Yes. Yes, I do."
So, what will happen to Santos now? Did he do anything wrong? Did he illegally profit by gaming the market in order to win big? And most importantly, will he end up back in prison for another felony?
Five bucks says he will. Any takers?
Photo credit: Milliped (Wikimedia Commons, GNU Free Documentation 1.2)
Library of Congress, via Picryl.com (Public Domain)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.