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The Journal.

Insiders Are Cashing In on Prediction Markets

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Business News, Daily News, News

4.25.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2026

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are booming, but they’re facing questions about users betting on information that is not publicly available, from Super Bowl performances to geopolitical crises. Advocates for the platforms say they are "truth machines" but critics say they’re a new vehicle for insider trading. WSJ’s Caitlin Ostroff explains how users are making fortunes, and why regulators are starting to take notice. Ryan Knutson hosts. Further Listening: - How ‘The Joker’ Rigged the Texas Lottery - How Parlays Became the Biggest Bet in SportsSign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Shortly before the Super Bowl, someone went on Polymarket, that site where you can bet on

0:10.3

everything from sports to politics to the weather and placed 19 very specific bets.

0:17.1

I sat down with our colleague Kieland Ostrrov to take a look at that person's account.

0:21.9

All the trades on polymarket are public, but users can be anonymous.

0:27.8

I want you to just walk us through what we're looking at here.

0:30.6

This is the guy who's the Super Bowl guy.

0:34.9

Yeah, so this page is the page of someone who bet very, very well on who would be performing

0:43.0

at the Super Bowl halftime show.

0:46.3

The person bet around $19,000 that Lady Gaga would have a surprise performance.

0:51.4

They bet $3,000 that Cardi B would, too. They bet $10,000 that Travis Scott would not

0:57.1

perform. And they bet $200 that the headliner, Bad Bunny, would open with the song Titi

1:02.9

Me Pregunto. And 17 of those 19 bets were correct. The person won almost $17,000.

1:12.6

Yeah, and scroll up, because I'm curious at one more thing.

1:15.5

So this shows that the first trades that they made were right before the Super Bowl.

1:20.1

So they had not traded on anything before this.

1:22.9

And if you scroll down, you'll notice that there's no other trades after the Super Bowl ones.

1:27.6

So there's no other types of markets that they've traded on.

1:30.9

So based on what you are seeing here on this person's account, what can you deduce about what's

1:36.4

going on here?

1:37.9

So they are either a really, really lucky trader or they knew something ahead of time.

1:50.2

As prediction markets explode in popularity, bets like these, from people who appear to have

1:56.1

inside information are getting a lot of attention and raising a lot of eyebrows.

...

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