Betting on Chaos: Professionals in Prediction Markets

What does it take to make a living betting on politics? Can prediction markets offer insights about the future that other analyses cannot? To find out, ChinaTalk interviewed Domer, a professional prediction markets bettor. Domer is the number one trader by volume on Polymarket, and he’s been trading since 2007. He initially entered this world through poker, but now makes bets about who will win foreign elections, whether wars will start, and whether bills will become law. We discuss… Why some issues — like Romanian elections, the NYC mayoral race, or Zelenskyy’s outfit choices — can attract hundreds of millions of dollars in trading volume, Systematic biases in prediction markets, including why they overestimate the likelihood of a Taiwan contingency, What happens to prediction markets in the absence of insider trading regulations, Why prediction markets are still a solo endeavor, and what a profit-maximizing team of traders would look like, Bonus: How betting markets backfired on Romanian nationalists, what AI can teach you about betting, and other insights on winning from one of Domer’s contemporaries. Outro music: Bob Dylan - Rambling, Gambling Willie (YouTube Link) This episode is brought to you by ElevenLabs. I’ve been on the hunt for years for the perfect reader app that puts AI audio at the center of its design. Over the past few months, the ElevenReader app has earned a spot on my iPhone's home screen and now gets about 30 minutes of use every day. I plow through articles using Eleven Reader’s beautiful voices and love having Richard Feynman read me AI news stories — as well as, you know, Matilda every once in a while, too. I’m also a power user of its bookmark feature, which the ElevenReader team added after I requested it on Twitter. ChinaTalk’s newsletter content even comes preloaded in the feed. Check out the ElevenReader app if you’re looking for the best mobile reader on the market. Oh, and by the way — if you ever need to transcribe anything, ElevenLabs’ Scribe model has transformed our workflow for getting transcripts out to you on the newsletter. It’s crossed the threshold from “95% good” to “99.5% amazing,” saving our production team hours every week. Check it out the next time you need something transcribed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices