Before Kalshi and Polymarket there was the Iowa Electronic Markets

This message comes from Edward Jones, where they believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones, member SIPC. Hey, guys. We have an episode for you. We always do. But first, we have a question. A lot has happened in the past five or so years, and we wanna know how you all are holding up. Did you make any big decisions that are maybe backfiring now? Like, did you move to Montana during the pandemic, and now your work wants you back in the office in Seattle? What's your plan? Or is your money in the stock market right now, and you're just, like, watching it grow, grow, grow, grow? What are you spending it on? Yeah. We wanna check-in with our whole Planet Money community. Does it feel like things cost a lot more these days? Groceries, going on dates, doing something fun for your family? Have you found any great life hacks to help you get by or maybe even thrive in this economy? Yeah. We wanna hear from you, and maybe we'll call you up for a future show about how things feel right now. Send us an email about how the economy is affecting you and your life at planetmoney@npr.org, and maybe we'll call you up to chat. That email, planetmoney@npr.org. Alright. Erica, you have a show to start. This is Planet Money from NPR. Recently, I heard a story that changed how I think about prediction markets. One moment in the story in particular. It was part of the history of where prediction markets came from, which as you may have heard goes back hundreds of years in some form, but also in another form, prediction markets as we know them today were cooked up by economists trying to test some theories on markets. And in this story of the evolution of prediction markets, there's a moment when an economic historian studying the long ago early roots of prediction markets realizes there's already a well functioning design of a prediction market at the racetrack. Now, of course, many of you will say, yeah. Obviously, gambling is gambling, of course. But the part I didn't quite know is that prediction markets for elections were popular and robust until they mysteriously faded away. And one theory is horse racing took over. You know, because instead of an election every year or whatever, you can have a dozen races a week. This all comes from this fascinating history of the economic origins of prediction markets. The economists who cooked up the proto prediction markets. The political machines that basically had to financially bet on their candidates hundreds of years ago and even farther back than that. So today, we're going to share an excerpt of this story for you. It comes from our friends at ThruLine, NPR's excellent …