Your summer (Sponsored by prediction markets)

I went to a wedding over the weekend, and I was chatting with somebody who was asking me about my opinion on a specific political candidate. And they were like, "Oh, like, $80 on this person wedding, their election, and whatever state." It would be sort of dystopian if the thing that got people really invested in American democracy in the midterms was their. their kalshi pets. Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Loose, and you're listening to it's been a minute from NPR. A show about what's going on in culture, and why it doesn't happen by accident. Predictive markets are reimagined bedding systems where wagers can be placed on anything happening in the real world. And while sports dominate these markets, there has been a noticeable advertising shift towards reaching women. From predicting the winner of Love Island USA to the Taylor Swift Travis Kelsey wedding, predictive markets seem to be courting a new category of consumers. To discuss this phenomenon, we're talking with Nancy Wallicky, staff writer at The Atlantic, and Lauren McCarthy, business reporter at The New York Times, to understand how predictive markets are catering to women. Lauren, Nancy, welcome to it's been a minute. Thanks for having us. It's so great to be here. I am very excited to talk about this topic today because I feel like I'm constantly getting ads that are, like, girl, getting to prediction markets. How would you describe, though, the prediction market landscape this summer? I mean, this summer was explosive for prediction markets, to put it lightly. It started with the NBA Finals that I don't know if you guys are all in New York. I live in New York. It felt like the only thing we could pay attention to at the time was the next. It's extremely exciting, and then straight into the World Cup, and then now closing out the summer with the US Open. And prediction markets have been a part of that in every, at every step, and in some ways, an unexpected, or maybe a part of it you didn't even notice. They were really good with their organic marketing. They paid a lot of creators. Oftentimes, they found creators that were doing something busy or fun or interesting around any of these sports events. There was a Jalen Brunson look like contest in a park in New York City, and it was actually really fun and very viral. Paulie Market then collaborated with him, paid him, and undisclosed about money to then put on this. So there was this organic feeling around a lot of their marketing this summer. They were just sort of integrated into the fun around it, into viral moments, into some like, man on the street, interviews, and that very much carried over into the World Cup. Yeah, it definitely felt. I saw it also in some very unconventional places, which I'm sure will get to as well, but Nancy, I want to hear from you, like what were some big moments that come to mind for you around the prediction market landscape this summer? Okay, I feel like I am outing myself as less of a sports fan, or somebody that follows this because my big moment, the thing I was hearing about it, I was hearing more about prediction markets in terms of Love Island, because you said the magic words around here, Nancy, you said the magic words. Yeah, and it was one of those things where actually at the time, I didn't quite realize how many of my friends or just people I'm around were actually, at least talking about using call sheet to bet on Love Island. I think they had a pretty big campaign around that, and I guess it does make sense in that kind of like sports, I mean, there is so much interaction in terms of, if you're somebody who watches Love Island, you're watching something every day, you're voting maybe on who gets to stay, who gets to go, there's a lot of engagement already. And so I think call sheet did a really good job, good job of kind of capitalizing on that engagement and getting people to bet. So I actually did end up watching a really large amount of sports this summer. So I saw everything that you were talking about Warren with regards to just like the aggressive sports betting marketing that was going on, but the love Island, like targeted Cal She ads, I mean, that was what really turned my head, but I had never gotten that sort of like insidious sort of marketing that like I was like, I would get super into a video and just think, you know, as to quote our producer Lexus, I'm just having good clean fun watching a video about opportunity to infinity, the winning couple, I thought I was having good time. I thought we were all having a laugh and then I look in the little corner and I, you know, at Cal She sponsored by then of course, you know, the ad copy comes out of whoever's on camera out of their mouth, and I was just like, damn, what made this summer so unique, what made it distinct from last summer. I mean, I think the World Cup. And I think one of the things was the format of the World Cup. Well, for one thing, the World Cup games actually came on like during times where I as an American was actually awake, so that was a big improvement. And there were more. There was an expanded format of the tournament. And so I heard a lot of people saying that as well, is that it almost doubled. I think the amount of games in the tournament. Yeah, and so that also doubles the amount of chances to bet. And so you also get more. There was a lot of people that World Cup was the reason that they downloaded one of these prediction markets and was the first time that they used it and because it was such a, you know, big tournament. They could, they had time to sort of become habituated in this thing that they were paying close attention to. So it was just like speed running. It was this really unique opportunity to like be drawn deeply into the zeitgeist of something that was happening all around us. And it was like such a social thing. One of my favorite stories that I heard during the World Cup. And that's when it clicked for me of like how much fun people were having. A woman told me that she downloaded calcium for the first time for the World Cup tournament. She was considering the amounts that she put on it like beer money. 10, 15, 20 dollars. Like if you're going to buy a drink instead of doing that, she was doing small bets on the different games. She went to one of the games that was in LA because she lived in California. And she put a small bet like maybe 20 dollars on the amount of corner kicks that were going to happen in that game. And so it wasn't about who was winning her who was losing it was like total number of corner kicks. And she was like an immersive way to watch the game. Yeah. And so she told everyone around her. And so she had all the people around her who were in different jerseys and cheering for different teams, counting the corner kicks for her to see if she was going to win her like 20 dollar bet. And she added was like how she connected with other fans opposing fans, how she connected with the game, how she like your attention into watching the game. She was a huge football fan, not as much a huge soccer fan, but then felt like so integrated into the fun. And I think the World Cup just provided a format for that that we have it that didn't exist last summer. Interesting, you know, I began getting a lot of calcium as the summer specifically having to do with love Island, as I said, but I have noticed that that trend has kind of continued even beyond love Island into other sort of topics that it feels like calcium thinks I might be interested in, you know, as a not super sports leaning woman in her late 30s. Even if I'm not necessarily interested in the topic that they're presenting, there's like a voice and a cadence. They seem like they really really understand who they're trying to speak to. Yes, so I started reporting on this because I was also like you getting these ads that I could not figure. I thought I was just in a very weird part of the algorithm where they thought that I wanted to, I really wanted to place the bet to get coffee money. But I think so one thing that that probably market and call she do when advertising toward women is I feel like they do sort of use internet kind of girl meme girl boss language if that makes sense. So like one ad that they ran has a woman talking about, you know, girl math says if I make $10 predicting real life stuff, then that coffee was technically free, like if I'm already scrolling through pop culture anyway, I might as well turn my hot takes into free iced coffee. It's kind of a dicking, but in a fun way like it's it's that exactly so and it made me think of what you were talking about Lauren about that woman who was placing those bets because these ads tend to emphasize for women tend to emphasize smaller wagers. And then also kind of sometimes that social aspect like with something like dancing with the stars or love Island, like you're kind of doing this with your friends. I think I also talked to when I saw Polymarket ads on call her daddy. and you know Alex Cooper advertising for Polymarket. I think if you're ever advertising via something like call her daddy you are making a direct play for women. I've also seen a marketing push with the underlining emphasis on like connect on the couch. I don't know if either of you guys have seen this. But a bit of advertising that this is how you connect with your partner, you know like this is how women connect with their male partner. Oh, over the thing that they love. So like, oh, I just want to make sure I'm understanding. The idea is that you're both using the prediction market a gambling app to like connect with your partner because the assumption is that you like what you like and he likes sports and stuff. But you guys are both you both love gambling. Is that it? I'm struggling to totally put my finger on it because I don't know if there's like a perfect example, but this is sort of the undertone that I noted and I have I've also like had this conversation with women who do describe that phenomena to me. But like if you're a male partner, love sports and he's betting on it one way you can connect with him while you're watching the game is that you also put 20 bucks on it. And then now this is an activity that you're doing together. It's no longer his interest and you don't understand it, but you can connect with your partner by also putting money on the game with him. And now everybody's involved. Oh my gosh. Don't go anywhere. There is just a certain darkness in what if we financialize everything, right? Like what if we financialize when certain bombs will be dropped in Iran or something like that, you know, and so I think to see that start to apply more directly to women and things that women care about, it does personally just feel distasteful. We've got more coming up after the break. Perhaps the ideal scenario that perhaps maybe the brand is interested in right that you have a couple who both are using the app together to place bets and kind of encourage each other to do that. But just the idea that that kind of storytelling is working, or as it could possibly work, that's like a lot to kind of take in. It kind of in some ways feels kind of at odds with the very hard you put an anti sort of like girl boss kind of speak that you see on social media, but I'm wondering like from your perspective, you guys have seen way more of these than I have. Like how have you seen prediction market apps like this marketed toward men by comparison? Are they saying, hey, get on the couch with your wife and cuddle and swipe with the apps together? Like what's the picture they're painting with men versus with women? Yeah, it's like your wife's love language is actually Kelsey. No, I think with men, the thing that I noticed, I would be curious to learn what you've seen, is they do tend to emphasize larger monetary wagers and the actual risk involved and kind of that that's fun. So one ad that I did see kind of around the election period that seemed pretty clearly targeted toward a guy was one of the sort of fake tech exchanges between two people where one guy's bro, I'm going to bet my paycheck that Donald Trump is going to win. Yeah, it was something very large like a paycheck like thousands of dollars and you know, maybe I'll buy a cyber truck with the winnings. So like there's a couple things going on there, which is it's a large wager. It's obviously risky. So I think they kind of tend to do that with men. It's interesting, interesting. You know, I'm wondering, I don't know, like sports gambling and prediction markets have been traditionally male centered as we're discussing. And they've been very profitable for that reason. But what could be the goal then in turning towards women in such an obvious way? I can't hurt. I can't. You know, more users is more users and why not make a play in a push for women in a way that traditional sports books aren't. And you have the ability to offer wagers on so many different topics on culture, on sports, on elections, on fed decisions. Why not try to draw in as many possible users? Right. I mean, yeah, right. Women are 50% of the population. Let's bring them in just from a business perspective. I think the other thing that stands out to me is these sites do need women or at least people who bet on something other than sports because right now many states are suing them for operating as illegal, you know, sports books. And so the company's argument in these cases is that they're financial markets. They're not a sports book. They're, you know, like a stock exchange, but you're just trading with people about the outcome of you know, of a reality show. And so they have a vested interest in getting users to bet on topics besides sports so that then they can say, look, no, we're not, you know, we're not a sports book. But it is interesting because right now I was looking into this this morning in the past six months about 66% of the trades on call. She have been about sports based on some data from this investment firm paradigm. Meanwhile, culture trades account for 0.2% of trades. So if you want to say, right, if you want to say like we're financializing everything, we are not a sports book. We are a financial market, you know, we're, we're, we're, you know, you gotta have more going on than just people betting on the next. Wait, I want to get a sense. I want to get a sense sort of of like the size of the pools that we're talking about here. So let's start to kind of understand. Give me the idea of like what a pool looks like for like a pool size looks like for say like a, if you're betting on love island versus betting on betting on something like having to do with the world cup. Like what's the difference here in terms of dollars that we're talking about? So I wrote two of these down because to make this comparison, the love island, what was it? The summer season eight. Yeah, in America, yeah. The love island winner market on Calche was 23.9 million, which is a lot of money. You know, that's how that feels like a really big market for something like a culture market, but compare that that was right around the same time as the world cup winner. The world cup winner market was 1.89 billion on Calche. It's still like a, a small amount compared to what something like the world cup winner draws in. Interesting, that's interesting. I'll be really curious to see what the Calche and probably market ads look like as we get toward the finale of this season of Dancing with the Stars. You know, assuming that what we've seen so far as a trend that's going to continue to carry over through the rest of the year. But I, but those are all like fun to a certain degree, right? I want to talk about betting of a different sort that I've seen take a really surprising turn in terms of the ways in which companies like Polymarket and Calche are marketing toward women. I want to talk about this ad that was read by Amanda Hersch, she is the host of podcast called Not Skinny, but Not Fat. It's very popular. It's from a company called Deer Media. And she read an ad, and was running an ad, that basically encourages, or at least asks the viewer to consider what it might be like, or what they think about. The Lindsay Clancy trial, which was like, whoa, to me, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And for those of you who maybe have been like out of the country or living under a rock for the past few months. But this is the mother who was recently on trial. The trial was declared a mis-trial for killing her three children after she had repeatedly gone to medical professionals. And, you know, basically it was like, hey, check me out. I think that I am kind of going into a psychosis, and I want to make sure that my children are safe. So this has been a huge trial. You know, the public was not pleased. The ad was taken down, and she has since issued an apology. But it felt like we had kind of, I don't know, it felt like, to me, even though obviously she's walked us back a little bit. it. It feels to me like we're approaching a moment where the floodgates are kind of open as far as what is and isn't gauche to kind of bet on in these you know in this moment. You know it opens up that conversation of should we be able to bet on almost everything? You know is that helpful in some way or is it distasteful and harmful? I'm not sure what to make of it. It is clear that it makes clear that polymarket you know really is pushing wanting to be in front of women you know polymarket has the color dotty ads and you know every single one of the rotating hosts on their deer media podcasts are women and that ad was done you know as a polymarket partner and I'd have to guess you know was done with the intention to engage with a really salient and important conversation about women's mental health that is happening right now but it just approached a line that people didn't think was appropriate. I went and looked at there's three markets on the trial available on polymarket. The top one on polymarket has over 500,000 in volume close to 600,000 in volume and that is the date by which Lindsey Clancy may be convicted of murder so the bets are on you know if that will be December 31st this year or next year but like we talked about earlier with volumes you know in comparison to say the roughly 23 million bet on the love island winner yeah $500,000 feels a bit like the public not wanting to engage with that as a market I think will be my assessment and then Cal she is not offering as of when I check this morning Cal she is not offering any markets on the trial. Nancy what do you think? I do think it's just I mean I think there is like you were saying Lauren there is just a certain darkness in what if we financialize everything right like what if we financialize when certain bombs will be dropped in Kyran or something like that you know and so I think to see that start to apply more directly to women and things that women care about I don't know I mean I just I personally it does personally just feel distasteful to me you know a lot of the controversy around these markets are a lot of the push and pull between the states and the federal government over who gets to regulate them I'm sure if your pay attention to the markets you've seen you know constantly like a state-by-state headline of Minnesota trying to ban the markets with a law and then oh a judge in Minnesota didn't allow that law to take effect versus Washington sews the state and you know wins in this initial phase and it has a preliminary injunction against the markets there's this sort of patchwork and this tug of war between the federal government and the states over who gets to regulate these markets and impose some of these boundaries around them and you know at the center of that is whether or not event contracts what they're offering on them are swaps which is a certain type of financial derivative and it has for rules the states would argue that in order for the event contracts offered on the markets to be considered swaps they have to meet a certain bar of economic interest and like economic value and so that would maybe be something that they apply to an example of the Lindsey Clancy Child of well what's what's the economic interest or value of being able to bet on the Lindsey Clancy trial who is what insurance policy does that provide someone um how is that how are you hedging a risk by betting on that trial don't go anywhere i think the people that i've talked to that are having the most fun enjoy making their bet because it draws their attention to something that they weren't previously super tuned into and now it's holding it and they feel closer to the outcome and to the thing because they put some skin in the game we've got more coming up after the break you know clearly despite all of the ethical concerns with you know participating in these markets there's there is a willingness there for for men and women to get in on all of this why do you think people who may not have even considered gambling before um why do you think they've decided to participate now like like what did some of the people that you spoke to say well i think for one thing it certainly has lowered the barrier to entry in some ways i mean in that you can bet on whatever it is you feel like you know best so i mean even when i was reporting on this i would hear about you know that you could bet on where Taylor's so sweating was going to be and i really felt like wow i actually really i know i know you're like finally yeah i can make my coffee money um but but so i think there is a certain appeal in that you can kind of just use the knowledge that you already have um and i also think one thing maybe slightly related with with women specifically is i think um they do tend to market themselves a bit more as a financial tool than a betting site when it comes to women um you know they say stuff like how being able to bet on dancing with the stars or something women can use their competitive advantage and their knowledge of how these things typically go on reality to be sure what it is so it's like empowering like that's sort of the the unusual logic yeah um okay and so the idea is right like that day trader bro knows a lot about the stock market and he's you know making money that way but girl you know how the bachelor goes like you know that that you know the problematic girl is gonna stay on for a while but then she'll get booted you know that type of thing you know how that goes i was just gonna say i think they've been really successful too with like native advertising advertising on social media um advertising on social social media in a way that you can swipe up most of the young women that i talked to who said you know oh i i downloaded the summer and bet on bet on kalshi for the first time um and i asked why it was oh i saw on social media over and over and over again and then i finally swiped up and downloaded the app um and there's something just like organic about that and can imagine that of like yeah i also saw so many times and um you do find yourself swiping up on social media and say okay i'll try it out interesting it feels kind of like um a very gender essentialist or traditional idea of like what women can be knowledgeable about um and how women make money or women's interest or purported lack thereof in money and understanding it kind of coded like in this like sugar coating of like women's empowerment there's something so sneaky about that oh it's totally sneaky and it feels sort of we're it's sort of they're using him power in language and being sort of infantilizing at the same time where it's like you go girl invest your money compete with the men and also like obviously though you know about reality TV you know so yeah yeah it's kind of funny seeing those those things go at once i also i also will note like the reality TV shows are not even the best way to like actually make money because the market so accurately predicts the outcome yeah yeah yeah that like the margin is pretty close so if you put um you know money on the yes and the market is already predicting it at like 80 or 90 percent you're not really making a lot of yeah money so they're not like the most competitive or best edge markets to make a big return the summer sports and prediction betting wave kind of ended with calcium hitting disgraced former representative George Santos with a lifetime ban because according to reporting from mpr he was under investigation for Traction. trades tied to a calcium market on who would be in attendance at the state of the union. And sports personality Bill Simmons is now under investigation by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission for Admitting on his own podcast. I wouldn't do that. That he gets his daughter's boyfriend who lives in Massachusetts to place bets for Simmons who lives in California where sports betting is illegal. It sort of feels kind of like two big bummer moments, maybe not bummer for me, I'm enjoying the mass. But these feel kind of like two big bummer moments that are kind of closing out. This sort of like summer sponsored by Kyle Shee. But yeah, it feels like kind of like a stark reminder that like, oh, we're playing with real money here. When all of this can feel kind of like ephemeral and fake and just like fun, there's real consequences at stake here. I don't know. What do you all think about the way that we are sort of like closing out this prediction market somewhere? Are we? And we're about to go into the midterm elections and we're going to enter the first time in our history to my understanding that you can not just like in one presidential election where you, you know, vote this kind or this candidate across the entire country, all of our midterm elections down to like ballot measures. You can vote on them and you can bet on them. I went to a wedding over the weekend and I was chatting with somebody who was asking me about my opinion on a specific political candidate and I was like, what is up? Why are you asking about this now? Like, there's someone behind us like singing like Rick James karaoke, like, I think we're supposed to be having fun right now, like, what's going on? And they were like, oh, like, $8 on this person wanting their election and whatever state. It would be sort of, it would be sort of dystopian, if the thing that got people really invested in American democracy in the midterms was their, their calcium pets. At the end of the day, what, what these markets and the way that they are being marketed to us are doing is they are, they're constantly reading the room to see what we think about anything to see. I mean, we might react to any sort of outcome or event and to see what we become really interested in and what we, and what we don't. How do you think these prediction markets will continue to kind of surveil the way we feel about different fandoms or trends and what do you think an actual endpoint is here with all this? I wonder if people are going to bet on more and more my new things. I mean, like, we're already at the point where we will bet if it's going to rain in a certain area on a certain day and I do kind of wonder if the bets will get even kind of more microscopic in that way. The other kind of strange thing about the surveillance feeling is there's that feeling, but then on the other hand, there's also this sense among some consumers and then certainly from what the companies say about themselves that they are basically a great source of wisdom because you have all of these people who are really interested in these different topics, putting their money on the thing. And so the idea is, I mean, they're called prediction markets because they believe that if they're all of these people that are putting money on these things that they know and care about, they're going to predict the future better than some other source. So there's the surveillance feeling, but then there's also this sense that the people are kind of collectively creating these markets, if that makes any sense. Hmm, my gosh, that makes me think about just how much potential is there that I'm assuming other marketers will probably want to tap into. Yeah, like what does, I mean, I guess in some way it's like a way, it's just like a constant vibe check that people are putting their money behind. And now in a way, it sometimes it feels like with prediction markets, you're kind of paying to give your opinion. Yeah, you're like paying to give your opinion in a way that is like, I don't know, I guess it's not really something that I feel like we've really seen in this way before. I really have no clue where the actual endpoint is, but I imagine that like somewhere along the way, all of this sort of like brain trust, this like hive mind that can exist or different hiverines that can exist within these prediction market apps, I imagine that information must be really valuable to somebody, somewhere who wants to sell me something else. But gosh, hmm, well, I don't know, in some ways there's going to be people who I think who listen to this conversation and think seems like things can't get worse, but can they? I mean, women could start to really lose their money on these platforms, so there is that. I mean, I think it is really easy to forget. I think the thing that I come back to over and over with these prediction markets and just kind of how ubiquitous they've become, I mean, we like a year ago I couldn't even have told you what these are, but then in January, you had polymarket ads or polymarket odds displayed during the golden globes, you had CNN pundits, citing calls, yeah, citing calls these markets on air. So I think the thing that I come back to is as they become more and more ubiquitous and seen as something that a lot of people care about or even just as a source of truth, I do wonder if it'll just get easier and easier to forget that this is in fact something that you can lose money on, even though the ads are telling you that in the case of women, this is a financial platform for you that's empowering all this stuff, you can lose money on it. It's not like investing in an index fund or something and letting it grow. It's not that. Don't retire off of it, I guess. To what you were saying, I think it's this interesting relationship of like paying to care. I think the people that I've talked to that are having the most fun enjoy making their bat because it draws their attention to something that they weren't previously super tuned into and now it's holding it and they feel closer to the outcome and to the thing because they put some skin in the game and I think that's kind of the want of the consumer and I think that's become obvious with how popular they've become and then at some point public health experts will weigh in on whether or not that is good for society. It's also something so much that you know these things are so built for the internet in that like you can monetize these hot takes, these discussions that are constantly happening online. I mean there's simply so many things that so many different people are caring very passionately about at any given moment that you can monetize. So I do sometimes think about too how much these are kind of facilitated by just internet culture and people having strong opinions about very random things. Yeah, now you can say prove it. Yeah. Put your money where you're about to see it. Yeah. Oh my gosh, well, I don't know about you all but I am ready to get my Julia Styles themed polymarket ads this fall and winter. I'm really curious to see what gets cooked up around that. But until then, thank you both so much for this conversation. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you. That was Nancy Wallachy of The Atlantic and Lauren McCarthy of The New York Times. And to all of you watching, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Make sure to come back to this feed every Tuesday for a fresh video episode.