People are betting big on every little detail of the news.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Karino. Who will win the election? Who will win the election? What will the vote margin be?

Will Donald Trump post on X before November?

People can place bets on all these real world questions and more on prediction markets.

And these online platforms like Predicted and Polymarket

are increasingly being looked to as crystal balls in this chaotic election,

promising real-time political insights and the chance to make a few bucks.

Chris Cohen, the deputy site editor of GQ, recently wrote about his experience getting in on the action of what appears to be a

prediction market gold rush. It's interesting the way it works. It's not, you know, I've

dabbled in sports gambling where you're placing bets on you know who's going to

win or what the final score is going to be and in a prediction market what I

found super interesting is you can sell at any time so you're also making a

bet on what's going to happen a week from now.

It's something you can check constantly and play more like the stock market.

It's it's fascinating.

Right because unlike a sports game this is an ongoing reality that is being bet upon.

Right, yeah. You're gambling on the linear passage of time, which feels a little hot.

So what bets did you place?

So I placed a bet on Kamala Harris to win the presidency.

I thought she was way undervalued

right after Joe Biden dropped out. You can also place bets on things

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