Cash News
The ancients used oracles and inspected animal entrails to predict the future. Gen-Z has Polymarket, a crypto platform where (almost) anyone can bet on (almost) anything. It turned out to be the way to pick the winning horse this election year, correctly calling Donald Trump’s clean sweep – unlike most pollsters and pundits — and making a star out of anonymous trader “Theo,” whose multiple bets netted an estimated $85 million by reportedly focusing on indicators like neighbors’ voting intentions that went unnoticed by a lot of pros.
Yet with regulators in France and the US ramping up scrutiny of Polymarket — including a Federal Bureau of Investigation search that the platform alleged was politically motivated — there’s a need to curb some of the enthusiasm for what some prediction-market proponents see as a “new era” for the industry. And perhaps to wager that if a future shock is coming for the world of opinion polls, it’s more likely to come from artificial intelligence than betting.