Insiders Are Cashing In on Prediction Markets

Shortly before the Super Bowl, someone went on Polymarket, that site where you can bet on everything from sports to politics to the weather, and placed 19 very specific bets. I sat down with our colleague, Kylan Ostroff, to take a look at that person's account. All the trades on Polymarket are public, but users can be anonymous. I want you to just, like, walk us through, like, what we're looking at here. This is the guy who's The Super Bowl guy? The Super Bowl guy. Yeah. So this page is the page of someone who bet very, very well on who would be performing at the Super Bowl halftime show. The person bet around $19,000 that Lady Gaga would have a surprise performance. They bet $3,000 that Cardi B would too. They bet $10,000 that Travis Scott would not perform. And they bet $200 that the headliner, Bad Bunny, would open with the song Titi Me Prigunto. And 17 of those 19 bets were correct. The person won almost $17,000. Yeah. And scroll up because I'm curious at one more thing. So this shows that the first trades that they made were right before the Super Bowl. So they had not traded on anything before this. And if you scroll down, you'll notice that there's no other trades after the Super Bowl ones. Right. So there's no other types of markets that they've traded on. So based on what you are seeing here on this person's account, what can you deduce about what's going on here? So they are either a really, really lucky trader, or they knew something ahead of time. As prediction markets explode in popularity, bets like these, from people who appear to have inside information, are getting a lot of attention and raising a lot of eyebrows. People have the ability to put money down on things they couldn't historically, and it's way more accessible than it's ever been. And so you have people who can just take their inside information and make a ton of money off of it in a way that you've never really had before. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Tuesday, February 17. Coming up on the show, prediction markets are taking off, and insiders are cashing in. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremfya offers self injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremfya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self inject Tremfya, proper training is required. Tremfya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell …