David Yaffe-Bellany

law that had effectively banned most sports betting in the U.S.

Once that law was ruled unconstitutional, we saw a sort of avalanche of gambling.

Yeah, it was enormous.

Sports gambling companies across the country went state by state getting permission to offer their services.

And suddenly people could gamble from their phones.

And this was a huge transformation in the U.S.

I mean, in other countries, there's sort of always been this type of gambling, but it wasn't really possible in the U.S.

It was something you had to do in a clandestine way.

And suddenly it was all happening out in the open and the marketing was enormous.

You couldn't avoid it.

On some level, it's not directly related because legally this decision didn't have anything to do with prediction markets.

But it created this cultural moment where suddenly gambling, betting was totally accepted in the U.S.

It had sort of injected itself into the American consciousness in a way that had never happened before.

And it was in that context that a young entrepreneur named Shane Copeland started a company called Polymarket, which has become one of the leaders in this area.

Copeland's this young entrepreneur.

He spends one semester at NYU before dropping out.

And he has this super techie background.

He was really interested in cryptocurrencies.

He had kind of a nerdy fascination with markets from a pretty young age.

And the idea he had for Polymarket was actually quite high-minded.