The Daily How to Bet on (Literally) Anything
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Feb 4, 2026 
David Yaffe-Bellany, a New York Times technology reporter who covers crypto and fringe financial products. He walks through how prediction markets spread from sports betting to bets on politics and culture. He discusses legal fights, big-money traders shifting outcomes, ethical concerns about profiting from human suffering, and how these platforms could reshape how we value events.
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Everything Becomes Tradable Odds
- Prediction markets let people bet on politics and culture, turning many real-world events into tradable odds.
- David Yaffe-Bellany says this shifts how people perceive reality by putting a price on outcomes.
Polymarket Born From Pandemic Confusion
- Shane Copeland built Polymarket during the COVID-19 information surge to distill conflicting forecasts into a single market signal.
- He pitched markets as a form of market-based journalism to produce accurate, crowdsourced projections.
Contracts Are Probabilities, Not Tickets
- Event contracts cost between $0 and $1 and represent market-estimated probabilities for yes/no outcomes.
- The CFTC regulates these platforms as financial markets, not state sportsbooks, focusing on manipulation and insider trading risks.