The rapidly growing prediction market industry led by Polymarket and Kalshi allows people to bet on a raft of events, including US elections, government policy moves and sports games, raising concerns among policymakers that the platforms are opening up new avenues for insider trading and manipulation.
The companies say they have extensive controls to guard against misconduct, that their markets are often better at forecasting outcomes than traditional polls, and that they offer unique ways to hedge a range of esoteric real-world risks.
Yet a bipartisan majority of Americans is opposed to using prediction markets to bet on US elections, military actions and government policy announcements or decisions, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted September 30 through October 5.
Some 69% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans said they opposed using prediction markets to bet on election results.
Sixty-five percent of Americans opposed prediction market betting on US military actions and 63% opposed betting on government policy announcements or decisions, suggesting broad bipartisan discomfort with wagering on government affairs.
Only 8% and 9%, respectively, supported such bets.
The results shed more light on popular attitudes toward the nascent industry, which is marketing heavily on social media and TV even as it faces pushback from states and from Democratic lawmakers who argue the markets are unethical, socially corrosive and could undermine national security.
Some policymakers worry that prediction markets, which offer thousands of ways to wager on the US midterms, could undermine faith in the integrity of US democracy and enable government insiders to broadcast confidential information via their trades.