The people betting on catastrophic world events podcast00:00:0000:00:00Prediction markets allow you to put money on everything from the US attacking Iran to Jesus returning. Saahil Desai explains their dizzying riseIn the early hours of 3 January, Donald Trump ordered a surprise attack on the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, to kidnap the countrys leader, Nicolás Maduro. Millions of Venezuelans lives were thrown into uncertainty. Politicians at home and abroad scrambled to respond. It seemed this was something no one had seen coming. Except one person did actually predict it.In the hours before the attack, someone - and we have no way of knowing who - placed a series of bets that Donald Trump would oust Maduro on a prediction market platform, netting them nearly 500,000 when it happened. These platforms allow their users not just to bet on whoevers going to win the Super Bowl, but also on world events. Heavily regulated under the Biden administration, these apps have enjoyed a huge boom in popularity since Trump came to power.The Atlantics senior editor, Saahil Desai, explains them to Annie Kelly. Theyre called prediction markets because these sites are thought of as more akin to stock markets. The idea being that you put money based on what you think will happen. And in that sense, prediction markets let you forecast the future. But in effect, its just a fancy way of betting.He explains why the fact that media organisations are partnering with prediction market platforms is a w
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