The people betting on catastrophic world events – podcast

In the early hours of 3 January, Donald Trump ordered a surprise attack on Caracas to kidnap Nicolás Maduro. In the hours before the attack someone — and we have no way of knowing who — placed a series of bets on a prediction market that Trump would oust Maduro, netting nearly $500,000 when it happened.

These platforms let users bet on world events as well as sports and are described as prediction markets because they are thought of as more akin to stock markets, with people putting money on what they think will happen. Heavily regulated under the Biden administration, the apps have enjoyed a boom in popularity since Trump came to power.

The Atlantic’s senior editor Saahil Desai explains to Annie Kelly that while prediction markets can be used to forecast the future, in effect they are a form of betting, and media organisations partnering with the platforms is a worrying trend. Desai warns that donors could place large sums to swing odds and thereby shape media coverage in ways not possible with traditional polling.

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