Do prediction market bettors make anything better?

So figured out a way to pitch this? We know books aren't exactly a new medium. You know, a friend of mine once told me about a deeper bond with the product, nostalgia. It's delicate but potent. Sure. But let's not overthink this. He told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound. It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. Books aren't a spaceship, but a time machine. Spaceships? Listen. Why don't we just tell listeners straight that it is called the Planet Money book? It has a collection of some of our favorite stories with updates and tons of new original reporting. Plus, it's available in bookstores now. Wouldn't that Back home again Okay. To a place we know we are loved. This is Planet Money from NPR. My friend and colleague, Bobby Allen, has been covering the bananas growth of prediction markets for NPR. You know, the ones where you can bet on everything from Taylor Swift's wedding date to the war in Iran. And Bobby says this craze has kind of come out of nowhere. Like, a few years ago, when the CEO of one of the biggest prediction markets in the world reached out to Bobby. Like, hey, FYI, might be worth, like, incorporating, like, some cow shit prediction markets into your coverage. And I was like, a prediction what? Like, cow shit? Isn't that a cereal? The first thing that made Bobby think, wait. This may be a really big deal, happened last December. First, he saw Cauchy was partnering with CNN, meaning that CNN would be telling people the news and also telling them what people were betting on that news. And And around the same time, people were actually betting on whether a famine would be declared in Gaza. Those two things colliding made me think, like, what is this company all about? Who's using it? Why does CNN care about it? I guess WTF, how is this a thing? Ever since, Bobby has been listening to Kalshi's proponents and its detractors and trying to sort out exactly what this company is doing, either for us or to us. And we at Planet Money, we asked Bobby to take us along on the ride he's been on, starting with the Kalshi traders he met when he went looking for them, where they hang out in chats on Discord. My account isn't it's like Bobby 176539. There's, like, no photo. Like, I look like a bot, but it's fine. Definitely not a narc. Bobby was thinking that these prediction market apps might be the next frontier of online gambling addiction. So when he first got on the Discord, he was asking around for stories of financial ruin. And I got absolutely savage for this, like, absolutely savage. Here walks in an NPR reporter who announces himself as an NPR reporter and asks, hey, I'm looking for someone who's, like, addicted to cow shit and …