360° Financial Trend Detection
360° Financial Trend Detection
So, this is where we are. Betting on what some random press secretary might say? Give me a break. Joel Holsinger, some 26-year-old, quit his job to gamble on Kalshi. Claims he makes three grand a week. Good for him, I guess. But it feels… dystopian.
"People can make money on what they know, actually monetize their knowledge, monetize their hobby, because everyone is an expert on something," says Luana Lopes Lara, co-founder of Kalshi. Monetize your hobby? Is that what we're calling it now? Last I checked, hobbies were for, you know, enjoyment. Not turning every damn thing into a profit-generating scheme. What's next, monetizing breathing? Oh wait, the air quality's so bad in some cities, maybe that's already happening...
And this isn't some fringe thing. The New York Stock Exchange is throwing two billion dollars at Polymarket. Two. Billion. Dollars. We're not talking about pocket change here. We're talking about a full-blown cultural shift towards turning everything into a goddamn betting pool.
Kalshi called the 2024 election before the news networks. Impressive? Maybe. Depressing? Absolutely. Are we really outsourcing our political analysis to a bunch of gamblers? What happened to, I don't know, actual journalism?
Online sports betting is only legal in 31 states, but Kalshi is available in all 50. Convenient, ain't it? They call it "investing," not gambling. Jonathan Cohen, author of "Losing Big," isn't buying it. "It is a speculative instrument purely for my own use and my own entertainment, which to me qualifies it as gambling rather than investing." Preach.
Then there's the Donald Trump Jr. angle. He's a "strategic advisor" to Kalshi and Polymarket. Because of course he is. Gotta get the Trump name in there somehow. What kind of "advice" is he giving them, anyway? Go-to-market strategies? Expansion plans? Or just a wink and a nod from someone who might be back in the White House soon?
Kalshi is battling legal challenges in states like Massachusetts, who call this "unlawful sports wagering." The founders are "confident" in their legal position. Offcourse they are. Everyone's confident until they're not. A recent article in CBS News, Wanna bet? Online prediction markets wager that you will, discusses the rise of these online prediction markets.
You can bet on who will be a bridesmaid in Taylor Swift's wedding. Seriously? This is where we're at as a society? We've turned celebrity gossip into a financial instrument? I can't even...
"It's not enough to, like, like Taylor Swift anymore. You have to use your knowledge of Taylor Swift to, like, try to make money off of how many streams she's going to get in a month. Or it's not enough to, I don't know, even like politics anymore; you have to gamble on politics. You have to make money on politics." That's Cohen again, and he nails it.
It's the "gamblification" of American culture, and it's terrifying.
