Pore through the reams of bets made on Polymarket and Kalshi and a clear pattern emerges: bettors flocking again and again to money-losing longshot wagers.
To this crowd, the sites aren’t the truth machines that their billionaire founders claim, converting millions of carefully considered wagers into precise forecasts of real-world events that will, in turn, inform decision-making by businesses and investors across the globe. No, for many customers, these markets look more like a casino crossed with an arcade, open 24/7 and capable of serving up a never-ending buffet of nearly impossible bets that maximize the dopamine rush even as they minimize the financial returns.
