Latest news with #predictionmarkets
Reuters
2 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Trump nominee to lead US commodities regulator to face Senate scrutiny
NEW YORK, June 10 (Reuters) - Brian Quintenz, President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will face questions from lawmakers on Tuesday as they weigh whether he should run an agency poised to take on more oversight of cryptocurrency and prediction markets. Quintenz, a Republican who was previously a commissioner at the agency he would now chair, is expected to face scrutiny over his ties to industries he would oversee. Since leaving government in 2021, he had been working with a16z crypto, the crypto arm of Andreessen Horowitz, most recently as head of crypto policy. He is also a Director on the board of KalshiEx, a prediction market exchange that until recently was embroiled in litigation with the CFTC. Quintenz has pledged to divest all KalshiEx stock if he joins the CFTC, according to his financial disclosures. He is also on the board of the Crypto Council for Innovation, the disclosures show. Quintenz did not respond immediately to a request for comment, but in prepared remarks he said his work for Andreessen Horowitz's crypto funds has given him "invaluable insights". "Congress should create an appropriate market regulatory regime to ensure that this technology's full promise can be realized," he said. "I am fully prepared to use my experience and expertise to assist in that effort as well in executing any expanded mission should legislation pass into law." The CFTC, which oversees derivatives markets, is likely to play a more prominent role as Trump's administration looks to overhaul crypto regulations, with an eye towards giving the CFTC more authority to police digital assets. The sector has argued that existing rules are not appropriate for crypto, and that most cryptocurrencies should be treated as commodities. Trump courted crypto cash with promises to be a "crypto president", and in office has made a number of overtures to the industry. His family is also building a crypto enterprise.
CNN
09-05-2025
- Business
- CNN
Why prediction markets failed to see the American pope coming
The wisdom of crowds is no match for the whims of the Holy Spirit. This week, the ascension of the first American pope surprised many, including the theoretically neutral online betting sites Polymarket and Kalshi. The sites, which allow people to wager on the outcomes of various events, brand themselves as 'prediction markets' on the theory that when there's money on the line, they are better, in aggregate, at anticipating results. While they've had some successes — notably, they bested traditional polls at predicting Donald Trump's 2024 election win — the market for betting on the next pope was blindsided by the conclave's election of Chicago native Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. Before the white smoke went up, Kalshi and Polymarket both cast Prevost as a long shot, with odds between 1% and 2%, which means a handful of gamblers who bet on Prevost won big. On Polymarket, one user turned a bet of a little over $1,000 into a $63,683 profit, according to the site's public ledger. Betting markets allow you to wager on just about anything and have a mixed record of 'predicting' outcomes. While they called the 2024 election correctly, they notably fumbled in 2016, when the 'smart money' suggested British voters would reject 'Brexit' and that Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump. The conclave markets' big miss this week reflects the limits of their predictive powers. In sports betting, you've got thousands of data points about individual athletes, team stats going back decades and any number of informed opinions from professional commentators. Political winds can be volatile, but polling and voter data are practically endless at the national level. In pope betting, the data are far more scarce. 'The papal conclave markets are one of the ones that you'd expect to be the least well-calibrated since they only get a data point every decade or two,' Eric Zitzewitz, professor of economics at Dartmouth College, told CNN. 'And the process is much more opaque than almost any other political selection process… No tell-all memoirs, even well after the fact.' Plenty of academics and journalists offered insights into who might be among the favorites based on their various CVs and reputations in the church. Pietro Parolin and Luis Antonio Tagle were among the favorites heading into the conclave on Wednesday. And, as election forecaster Nate Silver noted Friday, Parolin's chances shot up as the white smoke emerged, 'presumably on the assumption that the quick decision was good news for the frontrunners.' Of course, the dynamics inside the Sistine Chapel were impossible for market participants to gauge from the outside. All any of us regular people could do was watch 'Conclave' and, based on the movie, assume there's plenty of drama and shifting allegiances. Bottom line: Even in a highly liquid market, which crowd-wisdom theory holds should be more accurate, there are simply no tools to measure what Catholics believe is the spirit of God guiding the cardinals' choice. 'The Holy Spirit is indeed a wily one,' Zitzewitz said.
