A big part of the appeal of prediction markets is simple: people are tired of the mainstream media’s 24/7 narrative machine. It’s loud, it’s constant, and a lot of it feels manufactured for the cycle rather than grounded in reality.
Historically, your only real option was to roll your eyes, maybe debunk it privately, and cancel your subscription. That was the extent of your “vote.” Now there’s a different outlet.
Prediction markets let you express a view with consequences. If you think the consensus narrative is wrong, you don’t just complain, you take the other side of the trade. In a way, it’s the first time people can actually price their disagreement with the The New York Times editorial board instead of just arguing about it.
Your line about money becoming the final virtue and divorced from any moral consideration is depressingly true. I'm a vet, and there was recently a report about shady online pharmacies selling counterfeit pet medications that made many dogs sick, and at least one went into organ failure and had to be euthanized. "Getting rich selling tainted drugs to puppies" sounds too evil for a comic book villain, yet here we are in 2026. If we can't find our way back to some higher purpose, whether secular or religious, our collective worship of money above all else is going to destroy our society.
I have read all these stories of the massive wins betting on Trump's policies clearly executed by someone with insider knowledge. But how much visibility do we have as to WHO the actual bettor was? We seem to just throw up our hands and say how corrupt it seems. But can't congress or a regulating agency actually investigate?
I think a reason gambling has such free reign is because traditionally, controlling these sorts of vices was a project of the right. But the Trump-era right has totally abandoned those issues (in the process securing the "cad vote", as Yglesias puts it). And the left--I think probably just due to cognitive dissonance--has been slow to pick up on it as an important issue.
I think you see a similar pattern with pornography, marijuana, and even the use of profanity in public/civic contexts. (It's hard to make younger people understand how insane the idea of a sitting president using the f-word in public would be to Americans in the 90s...)
After 2024, pretty much every politician is scared of getting on the wrong side of the same demographic of voters that is most heavily in online gambling debt, so we have to wait for the electoral cycle to lag heavily behind our need for regulation.
I wonder how prediction markets will evolve if the general public believes that the events are manipulated by insiders. I don't gamble, so I don't know, but my guess is that it's more fun to bet on something where the deciding factors are public -- the players involved, the strategy, and a few bits of random chance -- than one where privileged parties decided yesterday that the coin would come up heads today. The former at least has some plausible element of skill and insight. But is it fun to bet about what unknown insiders have chosen?
A big part of the appeal of prediction markets is simple: people are tired of the mainstream media’s 24/7 narrative machine. It’s loud, it’s constant, and a lot of it feels manufactured for the cycle rather than grounded in reality.
Historically, your only real option was to roll your eyes, maybe debunk it privately, and cancel your subscription. That was the extent of your “vote.” Now there’s a different outlet.
Prediction markets let you express a view with consequences. If you think the consensus narrative is wrong, you don’t just complain, you take the other side of the trade. In a way, it’s the first time people can actually price their disagreement with the The New York Times editorial board instead of just arguing about it.
From outrage… to position-taking.
Great way to put it.
Your line about money becoming the final virtue and divorced from any moral consideration is depressingly true. I'm a vet, and there was recently a report about shady online pharmacies selling counterfeit pet medications that made many dogs sick, and at least one went into organ failure and had to be euthanized. "Getting rich selling tainted drugs to puppies" sounds too evil for a comic book villain, yet here we are in 2026. If we can't find our way back to some higher purpose, whether secular or religious, our collective worship of money above all else is going to destroy our society.
News story: https://news.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=210&catId=619&Id=13170290
I have read all these stories of the massive wins betting on Trump's policies clearly executed by someone with insider knowledge. But how much visibility do we have as to WHO the actual bettor was? We seem to just throw up our hands and say how corrupt it seems. But can't congress or a regulating agency actually investigate?
Good piece.
I think a reason gambling has such free reign is because traditionally, controlling these sorts of vices was a project of the right. But the Trump-era right has totally abandoned those issues (in the process securing the "cad vote", as Yglesias puts it). And the left--I think probably just due to cognitive dissonance--has been slow to pick up on it as an important issue.
I think you see a similar pattern with pornography, marijuana, and even the use of profanity in public/civic contexts. (It's hard to make younger people understand how insane the idea of a sitting president using the f-word in public would be to Americans in the 90s...)
After 2024, pretty much every politician is scared of getting on the wrong side of the same demographic of voters that is most heavily in online gambling debt, so we have to wait for the electoral cycle to lag heavily behind our need for regulation.
I wonder how prediction markets will evolve if the general public believes that the events are manipulated by insiders. I don't gamble, so I don't know, but my guess is that it's more fun to bet on something where the deciding factors are public -- the players involved, the strategy, and a few bits of random chance -- than one where privileged parties decided yesterday that the coin would come up heads today. The former at least has some plausible element of skill and insight. But is it fun to bet about what unknown insiders have chosen?
This is a well written piece on a subject that few are paying attention to— but should be.
I just wish I could be an early riser like everyone else (Derek Thompson included) to make comments early, but alas, I’m not.
Thanks for this piece.