Gambling on the Globes & Geopolitics
Slate Money
Slate Podcasts
4.1 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week: Polymarket teamed up with the Golden Globes, displaying a live ticker for betters on the broadcast. Felix Salmon, Elizabeth Spiers, and Emily Peck, discuss the rising popularity of prediction markets and the potential consequences of having real world events–from award shows to geopolitical actions–be the basis for gambling payouts. Then, the Trump administration began an investigation into Fed chair Jerome Powell and the renovation of the central bank. The hosts cover Trump’s fraught history with the Fed and the backlash from Trump's own party. And finally, a new international ranking shows that Harvard has lost its top spot as a scientific institution following a recent pattern of Chinese dominance in the field. The hosts examine the long-term consequences of America’s divestment in scientific research and higher education.
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Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello! |
| 0:06.0 | Welcome to Slate Money, your guide to the Business and Finance News of the Week. |
| 0:13.2 | I'm Felix Herman of Bloomberg with Elizabeth Spires as New York Times. |
| 0:17.4 | Hello. |
| 0:18.2 | And Emily Peck of Axios. |
| 0:19.8 | Hello, hello. We three are going to talk about Jay Powell being sued by the Department of Justice. |
| 0:26.3 | We are going to talk about the way that China is winning the research university wars. |
| 0:31.9 | But mostly, I think what we're going to just talk about is betting and prediction markets and |
| 0:36.4 | polymarket and stuff, |
| 0:41.9 | because there's so much awesome stuff going on around there, Golden Globes, you name it. |
| 0:45.1 | It's all coming up on Slate Money. |
| 0:57.6 | So, Emily, Elizabeth, did either of you guys watch the Golden Globes Award live on the telly? |
| 1:00.8 | I did not, but I watched a clips later. |
| 1:02.8 | I watched the first 10 minutes. |
| 1:09.7 | Okay. And so you need to tell me, because I've read about this, but I have not personally experienced it in a visceral manner. |
| 1:14.2 | When you were watching the first 10 minutes, Emily, was there all manner of like weird chiron-y things from polymarket saying bet on the outcome? |
| 1:18.7 | No. |
| 1:19.4 | I only saw it in clips that they put up the polymarket odds ahead of things. |
| 1:23.7 | And there's best, you like, you saw the people who were carefully clipping the polymarket |
| 1:27.8 | clips and getting outraged by this, right? |
| 1:29.7 | Yes. |
| 1:30.3 | Yes, I did. |
... |
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