Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

NPR continues to follow the breaking news out of Iran. US and Israeli forces launched combat operations yesterday. President Trump announced the air strikes were targeting regime change in the country. We'll bring you much more tomorrow morning on up first, and you can also hear the latest coverage on our national security podcast, sources and methods with mayor Louise Kelly, or in the NPR app. I'm Ayesha Rascoe, and this is the Sunday story from Up First where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. The recent Super Bowl was awash with betting. And while most people were betting on the game, TikTok user at Caden Booth had other plans. I'm camping outside the Super Bowl stadium with this listening device for the next few days. Because you can better how long the national anthem will be, so I'm a try to time them rehearsing it and make money. When the TikTok TikTok influencer showed up outside the stadium to time the rehearsal, he expected lots of people to be there doing the same thing. I thought I was gonna show up here, and there would be 500 people sitting outside. Like, everyone's going it's, like, so genius, but I really thought there'd be 500 people in lawn chairs all trying to make easy money. Booth used the information he got from timing the rehearsal to place a bet on the length of the national anthem performance, and he won. These kind of niche bets are growing in popularity, especially on apps known as prediction markets, and the bets being placed on these apps go far beyond sports. People can bet on things like who will be the 2028 Republican presidential nominee, the weather in a number of cities, or even how long a government shutdown will last. NPR correspondent Bobby Allen has been covering this new way to place bets, and he joins me now. Hey, Bobby. Hey, Ayesha. Okay. So, you know, look. I've I've never placed a bet on these sites. I I really don't like losing money. Like, I you know what I'm saying? Unless I'm getting something in return. But I know the two most popular sites are Kalshi and Polymarket, and I've downloaded Kalshi. Can you walk me through how it works? Sure. So pull up the Kalshi app, and within within a couple clicks, you can connect this to your checking account. So you can directly put in money Okay. For your checking or savings account, and then you could start placing bets. You could see there's sports. There's mentions. I see elections. Who will be the twenty twenty eight Democratic nominee for president? Who will win the twenty twenty eight US presidential election? Gavin Newsom is at 21%. JD Vance at 24%. I see a lot of politics on his. So let's zoom in on on just one. So the State of the Union happened earlier this weekend. People were going on these apps …