Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

Up First from NPR

NPR

News, Daily News

4.6 • 59K Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The rise of prediction markets means you can now bet on just about anything, right from your phone. Apps like Kalshi and Polymarket have grown exponentially in President Trump’s second term, as his administration has rolled back regulations designed to keep the industry in check. Billions of dollars have flooded in, and users are placing bets on everything from whether it will rain in Seattle today to whether the US will take over control of Greenland. Who’s winning big on these apps? And who is losing? NPR correspondent Bobby Allyn joins The Sunday Story to explain how these markets came to be and where they are going.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR continues to follow the breaking news out of Iran. U.S. and Israeli forces launched combat operations
0:07.5	yesterday. President Trump announced the airstrikes were targeting regime change in the country.
0:13.9	We'll bring you much more tomorrow morning on up first, and you can also hear the latest coverage on our
0:19.7	national security podcast, Sources
0:22.0	and Methods with Mayor Louise Kelly or in the NPR app.
0:27.8	I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is the Sunday story from Up First, where we go beyond the news of the
0:33.5	day to bring you one big story. The recent Super Bowl was awash with betting, and while most people were betting on the game,
0:42.9	TikTok user at Caden Booth had other plans.
0:46.6	I'm camping outside the Super Bowl stadium with his listening device for the next few days.
0:49.9	Because you can bet on how long the national anthem will be, so I'm trying to time them
0:52.8	rehearsing it and make money.
0:54.0	When the TikTok influencers showed up outside the stadium to time the rehearsal, he expected lots of people to be there doing the same thing.
1:03.0	I thought I was going to show up here and there would be 500 people sitting outside.
1:07.0	Like everyone's saying it's like so genius, but I really thought there'd be 500 people in lawn chairs all trying to make easy money.
1:14.3	Booth used the information he got from timing the rehearsal to place a bet on the length of the national anthem performance, and he won.
1:22.9	These kind of niche bets are growing in popularity, especially on apps known as prediction markets,
1:29.9	and the bets being placed on these apps go far beyond sports.
1:34.8	People can bet on things like who will be the 28 Republican presidential nominee,
1:40.2	the weather in a number of cities, or even how long a government shutdown will last.
1:46.4	NPR correspondent Bobby Allen has been covering this new way to place bets, and he joins me now.
1:52.5	Hey, Bobby.
1:53.3	Hey, Aisha.
	...

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