From Trump Convictions to Assassination Attempts: How Prediction Markets Have Turned American Politics Into a Casino

Fintech start-ups want to turn betting on the outcome of an election or a war as easy as ordering Thai food.

More than $2.2 million has been bet on whether Donald Trump will go to prison for his hush-money conviction before the November election.

But a federal appeals court put a hold on the political gambling dream, pausing the dream for now.

Polymarket is funded by right-wing venture capitalists such as Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan , along with similar-minded VC firms like Founders Fund , whose cofounder, Peter Thiel , supports Trump .

The bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, for instance, ran a 2020 -election-predictions market, which now imprisoned fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried described as a “surprisingly strong” onboarding funnel.

Jim Bell’s essay endures as a troubling radical-chic artifact of an earlier era when digital money and a fundamentalist faith in markets made some cypherpunks think a revolution was at hand.

The new prediction markets are more civilized enterprises, allowing users to bet on the outcome of violence, without ostensibly encouraging it.