{"id":388849,"date":"2026-04-20T14:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T14:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/388849\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T14:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T14:44:09","slug":"finally-john-oliver-pours-last-week-tonights-resources-into-prediction-markets-segment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/388849\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally, John Oliver pours Last Week Tonight’s resources into prediction markets segment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few months and years, prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi have begun spawning practically everywhere: Award shows<\/a>, sporting events, news channels<\/a>. These companies have touted themselves as resources but, as John Oliver discusses in last night\u2019s Last Week Tonight<\/a>, they are dubiously legal and full of people trying to profit from instability. \u201cThese companies\u2019 insistence that they are not gambling platforms is actually one of the two more irritating claims that they tend to make. The other is that they\u2019re actually incredibly important to society because they can help us more accurately predict the future,\u201d says Oliver. But it seems more like they\u2019re helping people profit from instability, and, as Oliver quips, \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

At least two of those three categories seem well represented here already. Donald Trump, Jr. serves as an advisor to the two major companies, and what he offers them\u2014outside of a direct line to the White House\u2014is murky at best. But it also looks like there\u2019s other people with intimate knowledge of the government profiting from the markets. \u201cIt gets genuinely chilling when you realize that people seem to be using insider info to bet on life or death events,\u201d says Oliver, citing one person who made $400,000 after the capture of\u00a0 Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro and two Israelis who were charged with using classified military information to place bets. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt the bar minimum, the CFTC should be doing more,\u201d Oliver concludes the segment. \u201cAnd while it says it\u2019s writing new rules, I wouldn\u2019t expect much, especially for as long as this fucking guy [Michael Selig] is in charge. As I said earlier, there\u2019s a bunch of cases making their way through the courts right now, but it\u2019s not clear how they\u2019ll resolve and it\u2019s probably going to be in front of the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Congress is considering a number of proposals tackling aspects of this issue, although given the President of the United States has a kid currently advising both major companies, I wouldn\u2019t hold your breath.\u201d Perhaps we can check the odds on Polymarket\u2014in the meantime, you can watch Oliver\u2019s segment below.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past few months and years, prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi have begun spawning practically everywhere:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-388849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}