{"id":402012,"date":"2026-04-20T17:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T17:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/402012\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T17:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T17:07:08","slug":"john-oliver-on-prediction-markets-betting-on-war-is-really-dark-john-oliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/402012\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver on prediction markets: \u2018Betting on war is really dark\u2019 | John Oliver"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the latest Last Week Tonight, John Oliver<\/a> examined the surging field of so-called prediction markets, which have seen exponential growth in recent months with billions of dollars of bets every week for questions such as \u201cwill traffic in the strait of Hormuz return to normal by the end of April\u201d or \u201cwill the US confirm that aliens exist by 2027?\u201d<\/p>\n

The rapid growth and conversation takeover is thanks in part to aggressive marketing pushes by the two big players in the market, Kalshi and Polymarket<\/a>. \u201cIt is shocking the extent to which prediction markets have proliferated,\u201d the host said. \u201cAnd sometimes it\u2019s been a little unnerving, given the things that you can now bet on.\u201d He cited more recent queasy betting situations, such as \u201cwill Nancy Guthrie\u2019s kidnapper be arrested by 28 February?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impulse to try to make money betting on war or an unfolding tragedy is really dark,\u201d he continued. \u201cWhen someone dies, you\u2019re supposed to send their family a card that says \u2018sorry for your loss\u2019, and not one that says \u2018thanks for covering the spread!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Prediction markets are not new, Oliver noted, nor are controversial uses of betting, though \u201cthe concept of betting on grim outcomes once seemed beyond the pale. But everything started changing a few years ago when Kalshi and Polymarket launched their startups, opening the door to the free-for-all that we have now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oliver then dug into that free-for-all, starting with the companies\u2019 claim that they are not in fact gambling sites profiting from instability, since \u201cthe only groups that society has decided are allowed to profit from instability are military contractors, members of the Trump family and the Mormon wives\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth Kalshi and Polymarket will fiercely argue that that\u2019s not what they are at all,\u201d he added. \u201cThey argue that gambling involves playing against \u2018the house\u2019, while their users are trading against each other, with the companies typically just charging a fee on trades. They\u2019ll also insist that they\u2019re simply modern versions of commodity futures markets, which have been around for over a century.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd crucially, they\u2019ll say that the bets they sell are financial instruments that enable ordinary people to hedge against future risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Kalshi CEO, Tarek Mansour, put it, the company was \u201cvery important\u201d because it allowed people to bet on student loan forgiveness, and use money they won via bets for loans that weren\u2019t forgiven. \u201cApparently, they\u2019re just trying to help people make wise planning decisions,\u201d Oliver side-eyed. \u201cAnd that might make some sense when you\u2019re talking about an economic indicator or a specific event that might impact you personally. But what exactly is the financial loss that I\u2019m hedging against if I bet on the next winner of the Masked Singer, or whether or not Mr Beast will say \u2018feastable\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

To highlight just how absurd that claim of financial wisdom was, Oliver then played a clip of YouTuber Champ and a friend betting on Donald Trump saying certain phrases in a speech, yelping in delight when the president said \u201cSleepy Joe\u201d or \u201ctransgender\u201d, as they had predicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is not using a financial instrument to hedge risk,\u201d Oliver scolded. \u201cIt\u2019s taking advantage of a sundowning geriatric\u2019s rapidly declining verbal abilities. Oh, you bet he\u2019s going to say the word \u2018nasty\u2019? Great guess, dude. It\u2019s one of the last 200 words he has left.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, that clip is unsettling on multiple fronts,\u201d he added. \u201cOne, because the president\u2019s harmful rhetoric is being divorced from its actual meaning. But two, because that\u2019s not what these bros are supposed to be doing. They shouldn\u2019t be betting on Trump\u2019s speeches. They should be sitting on that same couch and watching YouTube highlight reels of Kevin Love outlet passes, six Modelos in, forging a deep, beautiful friendship that will last for 40 years and that they will never, ever discuss. Nature has lost its course.\u201d<\/p>\n

The refusal to identify themselves as gambling sites has paid off, he then noted: \u201cBy insisting they are \u2018financial exchanges\u2019 offering not bets but \u2018event contracts\u2019, prediction markets are not only able to operate in states where gambling isn\u2019t legal, but also get around state taxes and minimum age requirements in states where it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

How are they getting away with this? A lot has to do with the man in the White House, Oliver argued, as both companies have forged strong connections with the Trump family. Donald Trump Jr is an investor in and unpaid adviser to Polymarket, and a paid adviser to Kalshi. Oliver could not think of a single skill the nepo baby would bring to the table, but \u201cif hiring Don Jr helped get these companies on Trump\u2019s good side, it\u2019s a bet that\u2019s paid of massively for them\u201d. Because while the Biden administration tried to rein in some prediction markets, the Trump administration have essentially let it go unregulated, by stripping the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of its power.<\/p>\n

Under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, the CFTC is supposed to be comprised of five commissioners, with two from the minority party, but it currently has only one: Michael Selig, a massive prediction markets cheerleader. And it sure seems like there\u2019s people with intimate knowledge of government affairs using these markets for profit; Oliver pointed to one person who made $400,000 after the capture of Nicolas Maduro with a last-minute bet. \u201cIt gets genuinely chilling when you realize that people seem to be using insider info to bet on life or death events,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

What can be done? At minimum, \u201cthe CFTC should be doing more\u201d, he said. \u201cAnd while it says it\u2019s writing new rules, I wouldn\u2019t expect much, especially for as long as this fucking guy\u201d \u2013 Selig \u2013 \u201cis in charge.\u201d There are numerous cases working their way through the courts, though Oliver had little faith in the supreme court nor in Congressional action \u2013 \u201cgiven the president of the United States has a kid currently advising both major companies, I wouldn\u2019t hold your breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at some point we do need to put in place some basic guardrails here,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd until then, if we can\u2019t change how these sites operate, we should at least try and change how we individually see them.\u201d He also called on news organizations, particularly TV channels, to \u201cstop laundering these companies\u2019 reputations for them by putting their odds on screen like they are actual news\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, on a personal level, if you\u2019re considering using these markets to gamble, try and remember that you are statistically likely to lose money,\u201d he concluded. \u201cAnd while I am not against gambling per se, there is something so grim about these sites turning every aspect of our lives into a bet. Because sure, money can be won on them. But in that happening, something also gets lost. Specifically a society where things aren\u2019t only weighed in financial terms and where people engage with news for what it means to human beings, not just because they have $50 riding on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when something unexpected happens in the world, it would be really nice not to have to automatically question whether it\u2019s only because someone is trying to move a market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the latest Last Week Tonight, John Oliver examined the surging field of so-called prediction markets, which have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-402012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}