Verge Staff Prediction markets will let you bet on just about anything, from how many tweets Elon Musk will post this week to the next president of the United States, with predictions sometimes showing shockingly (or suspiciously) spot-on accuracy. Polymarket’s CEO Shayne Copland has even claimed that prediction markets are “the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now.” However, these platforms blur the lines — in terms of both function and regulation — between gambling and stock trading. As Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal said on The Vergecast, “All of the lines between trading, speculating, [and] gambling are just being completely torn apart.” There are also ethical concerns surfacing around prediction markets, like whether it’s acceptable to be able to place a bet on virtually everything, along with concerns about insider trading. For instance, a newly-created Polymarket account made over $400,000 in January betting on the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Highlights Everything is gambling now Here’s a list of things you can bet on, right this second. This year’s Super Bowl winner, sure. The winner of Survivor season 49, okay. But the number of gifts Santa will deliver this year? The number of tweets Elon Musk will send in the next 7 days? How much money Avatar: Fire and Ash will make at the box office? The next president of of Portugal? On Polymarket and Kalshi, if you can dream it up, you can probably bet on it. Welcome to the age of the prediction market. On this episode of The Vergecast, we try to figure out where prediction markets came from, and why they’ve become so popular. Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal joins the show to track the rise of Polymarket and Kalshi, explain their controversies and ultimate acceptance, and put these companies in their correct place in the economy. Most of all, he helps us figure out if there’s actually something new happening here, or if the betting has been happening forever.