To the contrary.
Politics nerds rejoice: You can now legally bet on elections.
After a protracted legal battle, earlier this month the financial exchange Kalshi secured a court ruling that allowed it to accept American wagers on political outcomes. The decision is a major victory for “prediction markets,” online platforms that let users bet on all kinds of future outcomes. On Kalshi, for example, users can now gamble not just on whether Donald Trump will win over Kamala Harris in next week’s presidential election but on who will be nominated at the Oscars, what mortgage rates will be next quarter, and when George R. R. Martin will finally release the next Game of Thrones book.
Even before the ruling, prediction markets had become big business, exploiting legal gray areas to operate. On Polymarket, a Kalshi competitor that runs on crypto, users have laid down the equivalent of over $2.6 billion on the race. Kalshi’s market, much smaller, still comes in at a cool $102 million.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Free Press
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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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