Oz Voloshin

Just last week, two senators introduced a bipartisan bill, bluntly called the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act, that would ban prediction markets from creating contracts around sport.

Our guest today is Catherine Long, an investigative reporter with The Wall Street Journal, who recently wrote a fascinating story about how prediction markets have overtaken college campuses and about the intersection of insider trading, Nepo babies, and frat boys.

Welcome, Catherine.

What a great triumvirate.

So take a step back, though.

And when did you become interested in Kalshi and Polymarket?

And when did they kind of take the world by storm?

I feel like I hear about them all the time, but I can't really put my finger on when it started.

I remember in the Nate Silver days, there was always this idea that betting markets were better than pollsters in terms of telling you what was going to happen in future.

And that was a thing that was talked about for a while.

And then I guess in 2024 election, it became gospel.

CNN, CNBC.

What's the difference between this and betting on the bookmaker?

And are they like Uber and Lyft, Pepsi and Coke?

Or are there other distinctions between Kelshi and Polymarket?

And is that a little bit more hardcore in that sense?

Because you have to use crypto and you have to use a VPN and stuff.

Is there like a difference in the user base?

Is Kalshi more like entertainment focused and Polymark is more like hardcore?

Or is that kind of a false dichotomy, do you think?