Last year, Last Week Tonight did a deep dive into sports betting. Last night, Last Week Tonight explored prediction markets, the close cousin to sports betting.
The full segment from John Oliver is worth your time.
It feels like a post-apocalyptic approach to world events and wagering, mashing the two of them together in a way that caters to the get-rich-right-now delusions of many. And screwing most of them.
Kalshi and Polymarket, the Coke-and-Pepsi equivalents to DraftKings and FanDuel in the sports betting arena, have made billions of dollars through the facilitation of betting on a wide variety of propositions, from sports to politics to war to the weather to the question of whether President Trump will say “Sleepy Joe” during a speech.
Like any industry that doesn’t make anything tangible, the prediction markets rely on money. Your money. And even though there are significant differences between sportsbooks and prediction markets, they wouldn’t exist if they weren’t taking in much more money than they were paying out.
For prediction markets, the best way to win is to have inside information. Prediction markets don’t discourage it; Polymarket seems to welcome it. Because those with it prey upon not the house but on those who are betting without the benefit of knowing what will happen before it does.
The prediction markets have, to date, successfully wedged themselves within the concept of commodities futures. Which has allowed them, to date, to fall under the regulation of a federal government that doesn’t seem to be all that inclined to regulate them.
The whole thing feels wrong. It feels skeevy. It permits corruption. Hell, it invites it.
And it’s now mainstream. The companies have arrangements with news organizations, which provide a patina of legitimacy. Kalshi, for example, has deals with CNN, CNBC, and Fox News. Polymarket has a deal with Dow Jones.
The business model allows those who know how to rig the system in a way that preys on the uninformed. With a small percentage absconding with winnings, most are left to wonder what the hell happened to their money. And Kalshi and Polymarket simply sit back and get a cut of all the action.
Basically, it’s a dating site that matches the smart and the stupid. And the smart aren’t necessarily smart. Many of them simply know what’s going to happen before it does.
As Oliver said, most prediction-market users lose money. On Polymarket, there are more than two million users. More than two thirds of all money won went to 740 accounts.
It helps to have ties to the top of the federal government. Donald Trump Jr. has ties to both Kalshi and Polymarket. Watch Kalshi’s CEO bumble his way through fairly simple questions about Donald Trump Jr.’s role with the company.
Those who are making big money from these businesses would prefer that folks like John Oliver not peel back the curtain on how the sausage gets made. Because that could keep the vast majority of those from getting their pockets picked while picking through their sausage.
Or throwing their dildos. The segment included a discussion of the phenomenon of sex-toy incursions onto the court at WNBA games, which apparently prompted some to both bet on a dildo being thrown and then to win the bet by going to the game and throwing a dildo.
Fittingly, the segment ended with Oliver being battered by a whole bunch of dildos. Anyone who bet on that happening could have made a pretty penny.
