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Prediction Markets Turn Everything into a Wager—Even War

A booming industry is inviting users to profit from human suffering

It’s about war but not really. It’s high tech and low cunning. It’s about making money or losing money. It’s about secrecy and anonymity. It’s a profound combination of greed and moral turpitude. It seems like a deeply depressing commentary on our times.

Prediction-market platforms allow users to bet on global political events

Potential insider trading enabled by these platforms is a concern

Wealthsimple was recently approved to conduct prediction-style trading in Canada

I’m talking about so-called “prediction markets” that invite bets on global political events— wars, elections, coups, uprisings, sanctions, even assassinations. What was once largely illegal and even taboo has come roaring into the open. Prediction markets beckon “crypto natives,” a cohort trained to turn any idea into a tradable asset. Masking identities behind pseudonymous wallets, these platforms often operate beyond any real accountability or enforceable regulation.

Two firms—Polymarket and Kalshi—dominate the market. When it comes to geopolitical wagering, Polymarket is the industry leader. It was created by Shayne Coplan in 2020 under COVID-19 lockdown. Amidst the swirl of misinformation and disinformation about the pandemic, the twenty-one-year-old computer science dropout became interested in prediction markets after reading a paper on the topic by economist Robin Hanson. Coplan came to believe prediction markets could far outperform polls and punditry. A system where people had money on the line would, he thought, force more honest forecasts.

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Working from his apartment in New York City, and occasionally coding from the privacy of his bathroom, Coplan set out to become America’s next big tech bro. His creation, he claimed, would scale individual bets into a mass, collective signal about what was likely to happen in the world—and generate big money to boot.

Polymarket’s first success came during the US presidential election in 2020, when betting on the site swung in favour of Joe Biden’s victory weeks before the vote. Venture capital soon came calling, smelling something in the air. Users also smelled something they liked—low-cost bets, fast confirmations and settlements, and clear levels of pricing for their wagers. And, no doubt, the excitement of seeming to be seers.

But the real surge forward for Polymarket came during the US 2024 presidential election. Altogether, it is estimated that trading in Polymarket’s US presidential markets exceeded $3 billion (US). By October 2025, Coplan became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.

Polymarket operates worldwide, with almost 750,000 users this past month (Coplan aims to expand the number to a billion people). But, for Coplan, Polymarket isn’t just a betting platform; it’s a vision of higher-level wisdom. “It’s the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now,” he told Anderson Cooper on CBS News, “until someone else creates some sort of super crystal ball.”

Pointing to the $3.6 million (US) riding on whether Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro would be out of power by the end of the year, Cooper suggested that prediction markets might be addictive. Coplan dismissed the concern by saying: “If you are into geopolitics, this creates an incentive for you to dig into what’s going on in Venezuela and try to get an edge.”

Cooper interviewed one of Polymarket’s big investors—or whales—who goes by the online moniker, “Domer.” Domer is really into Polymarket, to the tune of $400 million. But he doesn’t think of himself as a gambler. Instead, he describes himself as “taking very, very well-researched views on things.” After noticing that Donald Trump picked Mike Pence as his vice president in his first term, that both Trump and Pence have one-syllable names, and that Trump is very into marketing, and therefore would pick Vance (also one syllable), he placed an early $4,000 bet on J. D. Vance being selected as Trump’s running mate. He won a cool $250,000.

Early success for Polymarket led to early scrutiny. In 2022, Polymarket reached a settlement........

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