Scott Alexander

Insofar as my advocacy helped make this possible, I am bad.

I can only plead that it didn't really seem plausible back in 2021 that a presidential administration would keep all normal restrictions on sports gambling, but also let prediction markets do it as much as they wanted.

If only there had been some kind of decentralized forecasting tool that could have given me a canonical probability of this outcome.

Still, it might seem that, whatever the degenerate gamblers are doing, we at least have some interesting data.

There are now strong, minimally regulated, high-volume prediction markets on important global events.

In this column, I previously claimed this would revolutionize society.

Has it?

Here's a screen capture.

There are some markets pictured here.

Khamenei out as supreme leader of Iran, 20% chance.

Will Trump acquire Greenland before 2027, 18% chance.

Israel strikes Iran by January 31, 2026, 31% chance.

US takes Iran by, dates suggested, dominated by January 31, 30%.

Ducks vs Hoosiers, showing Hoosiers as the favourites, Kings vs Jets, Hawks vs Nuggets, Kings vs Warriors, Elon Musk number of tweets January 8-10, 2026, dominated by 140-164, US strike on Mexico by, dominated by March 31, Super Bowl champion 2026, dominated by Seattle, and ice shooter charged by March 31, 21% chance.

Scott writes, When I say I don't feel revolutionized, it's not because I don't believe it when it says there's a 20% chance Khomeini will be out before the end of the month.

The several thousand people who have invested $6 million in that question have probably converged upon the most accurate probability possible with existing knowledge, just the way prediction markets should.

Here are some possibilities.

Maybe people just haven't caught on yet.

Most news sources still don't cite prediction markets, even when many people would care about their outcome.

For example, the Khamenei market hasn't gotten mentioned in articles about the Iran protests, even though, will these protests succeed in toppling the regime, is the obvious first question any reader would ask.