Dan Schwarz at Asterisk:
For decades, prediction market optimists — and I count myself among them — have argued that once we build better markets and increase the supply of bettors, accuracy will improve, and we’ll all be able to benefit from a new level of societal foresight.
Now, in 2026, public prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi transact billions of dollars in volume each month. The vast majority of these bets are not on questions that might produce useful information. Roughly 90% of Kalshi’s trading volume (dollars exchanging hands between bettors) is from sports betting, making Kalshi effectively a sports gambling website with a small prediction market attached. I find that over 80% of the trading volume on Polymarket is concentrated on sports, cryptocurrency prices, or election betting.1
Much ink has been spilled on the negatives — such as gambling addiction and insider trading — of the growing popularity of these markets. But what of their promise? Are they producing valuable information and making humanity wiser?
More here.
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