Casey Newton

It's really this topic is so interesting to me because do you remember like when I went to that prediction markets conference and like, you know, I'm not a guy who likes to do sort of like remember when I saw Green Day at the corner bar and they were playing for 16 people and, you know, look out.

But like I do feel like I saw the equivalent of Green Day playing the corner bar.

Like the people who were interested in prediction markets several years ago were like these

absolute like nerds in the Bay Area who were sort of involved in the kind of play money prediction markets.

They were not like businesses that had like billions of dollars.

It was like this very niche academic interest.

And I remember going to that and feeling like,

I'm not sure whether this should be legal or not, but if it ever is, like I imagine this is just going to become like a total casino.

And I remember arguing with someone there about insider trading.

And this person who was one of like the people who were sort of originators of this movement were like saying that insider trading is good.

in a prediction market.

You want insiders to be trading on these markets because that produces better information.

And the point of prediction markets is to produce better information.

And so if you have members of Bad Bunny's entourage betting on the Super Bowl or you have people betting on military operations that they're actively involved in, that is actually a net good because

then we're more likely as a society to know that something is going down in Venezuela or something is happening at the Super Bowl.

And I just remember feeling like that is a beautiful theoretical construct that has zero chance of surviving contact with the real world.

And as it turns out, it didn't survive contact with the real world.

I mean, I just think this is one where we just need a new way of regulating these.

Like right now, these companies are self-regulating.

You know, Kalshi has said we don't allow insider trading.