The World Cup just did something it has never done. For the first time in the tournament’s modern history, the four best teams on the planet all made the semifinals. France, Spain, England, and Argentina. No Cinderella, no fluke, no Cape Verde crashing the party. And it happened in the first 48-team edition, which added an extra knockout round, meaning one more night for chaos to take a favorite down, and it still could not. The bracket collapsed into pure blue blood.

What makes it sing is that the two semifinals are opposite genres. France versus Spain in Dallas on Tuesday is the art film, a tactical chess match between the two most sophisticated teams left. France has the most frightening attack in the sport, Kylian Mbappé has eight goals in six games, and Les Bleus have not conceded in three straight matches. Spain has allowed a single goal in the entire tournament and brings players off the bench who would start for almost anyone else. England versus Argentina in Atlanta on Wednesday is the opposite: a grudge match soaked in 40 years of history, chaos-ball on both sides, the kind of fixture that comes with its own war crimes tribunal. England survived Norway 2-1 on a Jude Bellingham masterclass. Argentina got past Switzerland with Messi having a quiet night. And here is the wild part. In 20 years at the summit of the game, Lionel Messi has never once played England. That happens for the first time Wednesday, with Maradona’s Hand of God still sitting unforgiven four decades later. As Argentina’s coach put it, reaching this stage is “a privileged space in football.”

Now the business story riding underneath it. This tournament is the event that turned prediction markets into a genuine threat to the betting apps like DraftKings and FanDuel. In June the platforms cleared roughly $44.8 billion in combined volume, with Kalshi alone above $31 billion, a jump of more than 70% in a single month, and Polymarket setting a record at $10.8 billion. The World Cup Winner market by itself has traded around $3.9 billion, the largest sports market these venues have ever run. And the category math tells the real story. Sports now makes up about 85% of Kalshi’s lifetime volume, and on Polymarket, the platform built for politics, sports hit 56.5% of June volume and overtook both politics and crypto for the first time. Pew pegs sports at 80% of all Kalshi trading and 39% of Polymarket since mid-2024. Kalshi and Polymarket grabbed 78.5% of all betting-app downloads in June, up from a combined 6% a year earlier, while DraftKings and FanDuel shed between 36% and 41% of their users in the same window. Sports did not visit the prediction markets. It moved in and took the master bedroom. To the board.

TRADE 1: France vs. Spain, Semifinal

Tuesday, Dallas. The purist’s dream and the hardest game on the board to price. France enters as the tournament favorite on the strength of Mbappé’s eight goals and a defense that has gone three matches without conceding, the rare team firing at both ends. Spain counters with the best defensive record in the field, a single goal allowed across the whole tournament, and a bench so deep it functions as a second national team. This is the match the World Cup Winner market has been building toward, and it is essentially a coin flip dressed as a chess match. The value read: France is priced as the favorite to win the whole thing, which means the semifinal line undersells Spain, a side that has made conceding look impossible. When the market falls in love with an attack, the team that refuses to break is usually where the edge hides.

TRADE 2: England vs. Argentina, Semifinal

Wednesday, Atlanta. Forget the xG models, this one runs on 40 years of grievance. England and Argentina is soccer’s most combustible rivalry, equal parts football and unfinished history, and both teams have bludgeoned their way here rather than glided. England needed a Bellingham rescue act to see off Norway. Argentina leaned on everyone but a subdued Messi to dispatch Switzerland. The market’s problem is that neither side has looked convincing while both keep winning, which is the exact profile that breaks prediction models. The subplot worth the position: Messi, in his farewell tournament, faces England for the first time in his career, in a semifinal, on the 40th anniversary window of the goal English fans still have not forgiven. If you believe in narrative, the market is not pricing enough of it.

TRADE 3: World Cup Golden Boot Winner

The individual race has a new leader and it is the same man dragging France toward the final. Mbappé now sits on eight goals through six games, and with Les Bleus favored to go the distance, he has both the form and the fixtures to chase the first repeat Golden Boot in the award’s history, a feat no man has ever pulled off. Messi, tied with him for much of the tournament, went quiet against Switzerland and now needs Argentina to keep winning just to keep pace. The market has spent this World Cup as a two-man duel between the departing king and his heir, and the heir just pulled ahead on the same night the king went silent. History says this award loves a surprise. This year it looks like it wants a coronation.

About The Spread Sheet

Your comedic entry into what is trending on prediction markets. Hosted by Noah Gardenswartz. Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, power and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: YES or NO.

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Disclosures
Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.

The US men lost 4-1 to Belgium on Monday, and the exit was the same as it ever was. Round of 16. Beaten by a European side. Home soil, biggest crowd of a generation, and out in the second round for the seventh straight time against Belgium and the eleventh loss in their last twelve against European opponents. All three host nations, the US, Mexico, and Canada, went out at the same stage. The country spent a week arguing about whether Trump calling FIFA to reinstate Folarin Balogun’s red card would swing the game, and then Belgium scored four and answered the question for everyone. No phone call fixes a defense that concedes in the ninth minute.

So the familiar conversation is back, the one that arrives every four years like clockwork. Our youth system is broken. And this cycle handed us the single cleanest piece of evidence anyone has ever produced. Fifty-four players in this World Cup were born in the suburbs of Paris. Not France. The suburbs of Paris. That is enough bodies to fill two entire World Cup rosters from one metro area, and Thierry Henry, who came up in those same banlieues, could barely contain his pride talking about it.

France is the birthplace of nearly 100 players at this tournament, close to 8% of everyone on the pitch, and the Paris region has now passed São Paulo as the most productive talent factory on earth. Those players did not all suit up for France. They are scattered across Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, DR Congo, Haiti, and even Spain. One region, staffing half the planet.

Here is the part America refuses to hear. The Paris model is dense, diverse, and open. Structured academies, elite coaching, brutal competition, and a path that does not require a parent to write a check. The American model is pay-to-play. Travel clubs, tournament fees, and a suburban filter that prices out most of the country before a kid turns twelve. We do not have a talent problem. We have an access problem. France turned a few square miles of public housing into the richest vein of footballers in history. We turned the sport into a country-club membership and then act surprised when 340 million people cannot produce a quarterfinal. The market has a word for a system that only lets rich people in. It is called mispriced. To the board.

TRADE 1: World Cup Winner

Here is the open, priced. France leads the winner market at 40%, nearly double Argentina at 18%, with Spain at 17% and England at 16%, across $4.1 billion in volume, the largest sports market Polymarket has ever run. Europe as a whole carries a 66% chance to win the thing outright. Now connect the number to the intro. The team the crowd backs hardest to lift the trophy is the exact team the first three paragraphs just explained. France is not a 40% favorite despite the Paris suburbs. France is a 40% favorite because of them. Mbappé, Dembélé, and a spine of players developed in open academies a train ride from the Stade de France are the direct financial payoff of a system that lets everyone in. The market is even pricing France at 70% to produce the tournament’s top-scoring nation. This is what a functioning talent pipeline looks like rendered as an order book. The US was priced around 3% to win it all before Belgium sent that number to zero. France sits at 40 because it built the factory. We sold memberships to the pool.

TRADE 2: How Many Fed Rate Cuts in 2026?

The crowd has stopped believing the Fed. Despite a dot plot that still gestures at easing, Polymarket prices a 78% chance of zero rate cuts for all of 2026, and a separate market puts July’s decision at 85% “no change,” across more than $100 million in combined volume. Read those two numbers together. The Fed keeps talking about cutting, and the money keeps pricing it doing nothing. This is the purest example of what a prediction market is for. A central banker can float a cut in a speech and move a headline. He cannot move an order book full of people who get paid only if they are right. The traders are calling the bluff. The dot plot is a wish. The 78% is a verdict.

TRADE 3: Where Will 2026 Rank Among the Hottest Years on Record?

The most quietly grim market on the board is trading at 59% for 2026 finishing as the second-hottest year ever recorded. Not the hottest. The second. That distinction is the whole story. A market pricing the second-hottest year in recorded history as the base case, with barely a flinch, is the climate version of “Nothing Ever Happens.” The catastrophe is not a spike anymore. It is the new baseline, priced calmly, sorted by 24-hour volume, sitting on the same screen as a Bitcoin ticker and a soccer score. The crowd has fully absorbed a warming planet into its risk models and moved on to the next trade. There is no panic in the number. That is exactly what makes it the scariest one here.

About The Spread Sheet

Your comedic entry into what is trending on prediction markets. Hosted by Noah Gardenswartz. Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, power and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: YES or NO.

Follow
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Disclosures
Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.

Noah is joined by comedian Jamie Wolf for an episode that trades away from the news cycle and into the stuff nobody can control: whether an anonymous artist paints a wall, whether the weather ends a coastline, and whether Philadelphia’s football destiny is as inevitable as Philadelphia thinks and what happens if the Cowboys cheerleaders would roll into town.

In This Episode

Will Banksy Create a New Mural by December 31? The crowd says almost certainly, pricing a new confirmed Banksy piece at 87% before year-end. The comedy is the mechanics of the bet. This is a market on whether an anonymous man will secretly paint a wall, get authenticated by his own official channel, and do it before a deadline he never agreed to. The resolution depends entirely on Banksy deciding to be Banksy on schedule. Jamie on whether the world’s most famous artist can be counted on to show up for a market that treats his entire creative process like a Q4 earnings deadline.

Will Any Category 4 Hurricane Make Landfall in the US Before 2027? The crowd sits at 28% Yes, and the number is doing real work. NOAA and Colorado State forecasts point to a below-average 2026 Atlantic season, with emerging El Niño conditions raising wind shear and suppressing intensification, and CSU’s June update trimmed the outlook to roughly 11 storms, 5 hurricanes, and 2 majors. The market is not guessing. It is pricing a scientific consensus that a Category 4 landfall is unlikely but far from impossible. Jamie gets the uncomfortable segment: a market where a Yes is a genuine disaster and the money says probably not.

Who Will Win the NFC East? The Eagles are the Kalshi favorite to win the division again, with model reads projecting them first at nearly 10 wins and sportsbooks landing them around +115 to +140, an implied chance in the mid-40s. Philadelphia has taken the NFC East in five of the last nine seasons and just became the first repeat winner since the early 2000s. The question is whether destiny is real or whether Dallas, the perennial closest challenger, finally makes the division a race. Jamie on whether the Eagles fulfill their preseason prophecy or find a new way to torment their own fan base.

Make a Market

The closing pitch from the room: will the Los Angeles Lakers roll out an all-white starting five this season? A “make a market” segment where the guest proposes the contract, sets the line, and dares the crowd to trade it.

Trade the Markets

Every market in this episode is live. Links above. Odds move fast, so what you hear on the show may not be what you see when you click.

About The Spread Sheet

Your comedic entry into what is trending on prediction markets. Hosted by Noah Gardenswartz. Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, power and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: YES or NO.

Follow
Web: spreadsheetshow.com
X: x.com/spreadsheetshow
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Disclosures
Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.

Guest: Jamie Wolf
Web: https://www.jamiewolfcomedy.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/jamiewolfcomedy
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamiewolfcomedy/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jamiewolfcomedy

Timestamps

0:00 Intro

3:35 Will Banksy create new art in 2026?

12:47 Will a Category 4 hurricane make landfall this year?

21:26 Will the Eagles win the NFC East?

31:23 Can the Lakers win with a white starting 5

THE SPREAD SHEET
Your comedic entry into what is trending on prediction markets. Hosted by Noah Gardenswartz.

Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, power and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: YES or NO.

FOLLOW
Web: spreadsheetshow.com
X: x.com/spreadsheetshow
Instagram: instagram.com/spreadsheetshow
TikTok: tiktok.com/@spreadsheetshow
YouTube: youtube.com/@spreadsheetshow

DISCLOSURES
Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.

Some images and visual elements in this episode were generated or modified using AI tools.

The World Cup was forecast to be the biggest gambling event in history and the prediction markets just posted the receipts. Kalshi cleared $31 billion in notional volume in June, up more than 70% from May, and has held over $1 billion in daily volume every day since the tournament kicked off. Polymarket hit a record $10.8 billion for the month. Rothera, the Susquehanna and Robinhood joint venture, launched in June and immediately did $2 billion, grabbing 7% of US prediction market volume in its first thirty days of existence. The World Cup winner market alone has traded $3.9 billion. The soccer is the show. The order book is the business, and the business just had its best month ever.

Which brings us to tonight, the biggest game in US men’s soccer history, and the strangest 72 hours a red card has ever produced. Folarin Balogun, the USMNT’s leading scorer with three goals, was sent off against Bosnia for stepping on a defender’s leg, a call so marginal that a former FIFA referee said it never should have gone to VAR review in the first place. An automatic one-game suspension meant the biggest match since 2002 without the team’s best finisher. Then the President of the United States called the president of FIFA. Days later, FIFA’s disciplinary committee invoked Article 27, suspended the suspension on a one-year probation, and made Balogun eligible for tonight. It is reportedly the first time since 1962 that a player red-carded in one World Cup match has been allowed to play the next one. Belgium’s federation is “astonished” and investigating its options. UEFA says the decision “crossed a red line.” The Belgian coach compared July 5 to April Fool’s Day. A Belgian source claims the slide about automatic red-card suspensions simply vanished from FIFA’s standard pre-match presentation. Trump posted “Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!”

Set aside your feelings about any individual involved and appreciate what the market just witnessed: a disciplinary outcome at the world’s biggest sporting event moved by a phone call, and every screen on Polymarket repriced in real time. The USMNT flipped from underdog to narrow favorite the moment the news broke. Somewhere in the last five years, prediction markets stopped being a novelty about Trump saying “McDonald’s” and became the instrument that prices presidential phone calls to Zurich. To the board.

TRADE 1: United States vs. Belgium

Tonight, 8 PM ET, Lumen Field, Seattle. Winner goes to the quarterfinals. The US has not been there since 2002, and the exits since read like a support group roster: Ghana in 2010, Belgium in 2014, the Netherlands in 2022. Tonight is the revenge game twelve years in the making against the team that ended the Tim Howard tournament. The Balogun reinstatement flipped the line. The US moved from underdog to short favorite on the news, with early money running 77% American on the three-way line and 82% on the advance market. That is not sharp positioning. That is a home crowd betting with its heart at a home World Cup, the same pattern that had Scotland leading its group in volume at 11% odds. The sober read: Belgium beat this team badly in a friendly earlier this year, and the market still prices the US at roughly 3% to win the whole tournament. Tonight is not about the trophy. It is about whether the program finally clears the wall it has hit for a quarter century, with its best striker on the field because the most powerful man in the country made a phone call. Only in America, hosting the world.

TRADE 2: World Cup Winner

France is running away with it. Les Bleus sit at 35% after dismantling Sweden, nearly double second-place Argentina at 17%, with the defending champions wobbling through extra time against Cape Verde and getting repriced from 21% to 17% overnight. The heavyweight event of the round is Portugal versus Spain on Tuesday, a collision the market prices as an accidental semifinal: Spain at roughly 12% and Portugal lurking, with the winner inheriting instant contender status and the loser going home before the quarters. The deeper story is concentration risk. A month ago this market was a five-way cluster with no team above 20%. Now one nation holds more than a third of the probability mass, and every remaining match is a referendum on whether the crowd crowned France too early. The number to watch is not France’s. It is Argentina’s. If the defending champs survive another ugly one, the value case writes itself: the market punishes aesthetics, but the trophy only counts wins.

TRADE 3: World Cup Golden Boot Winner

The best individual race in sports is tied at six goals apiece, and $41.8 million is riding on it. Kylian Mbappé leads the market at 49%, Lionel Messi sits at 33%, and the two of them have spent the tournament trading records like counterpunches. Messi passed Miroslav Klose for the most World Cup goals in history and set the record for consecutive matches scored. Mbappé answered with a brace against Sweden to pull level and now owns the all-time knockout-stage scoring record. One is 38 and playing his final World Cup. The other is 27 and chasing the first repeat Golden Boot in the award’s history, a thing no man has ever done. The market has priced this as a two-horse race with 84% of the probability split between them, which leaves 16% for the entire rest of the field, including Harry Kane sitting one goal back with England’s soft path still unfolding. History says the Golden Boot loves a nobody. The order book says this time is different. One of them is wrong, and the answer arrives one match at a time.

About The Spread Sheet

Your comedic entry into what is trending on prediction markets. Hosted by Noah Gardenswartz. Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, power and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: YES or NO.

Follow
Web: spreadsheetshow.com
X: x.com/spreadsheetshow
Instagram: instagram.com/spreadsheetshow
TikTok: tiktok.com/@spreadsheetshow
YouTube: youtube.com/@spreadsheetshow

Disclosures
Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.

The Scoreboard

The market went 3-for-5 in a week where the safest bet on the board wore white. It nailed the most predictable event of the year — Taylor Swift actually marrying Travis Kelce — then watched the Round of 32 turn into a mass grave for favorites: two European giants bounced on penalties, a jobs report a full 50,000 under consensus. When a celebrity wedding is the steadiest thing you’ve got, the board is having a week.

The Calls

🔴 MISS — Netherlands to get past Morocco (market ~72% YES). The Dutch drew 1-1 and lost the shootout 3-2. Morocco keeps proving 2022 was no fluke; the market keeps pricing them like it was. A perennial favorite went home in the first knockout round, and the orange section of everyone’s bracket is now just a smudge.

🟢 HIT — USA to beat Bosnia (market ~65% YES) The hosts advanced 2-0, Folarin Balogun scoring before collecting a red card, a decision so controversial that the guy he fouled came out defending him. Into the Round of 16 they go. The market called it; American soccer bettors experienced the novel sensation of being right.

🟢 HIT — Argentina to survive Cape Verde (market ~93% YES) Yes — but “survive” is carrying that whole sentence. Our little island darlings from last week took the world champions to extra time, equalized twice, and lost 3-2 only on a late own goal. The market’s “no way Cape Verde wins” was technically correct and emotionally destroyed. Messi advanced; the neutrals mourned.

🟢 HIT — Taylor Swift to get married in 2026 (market ~95% YES). After a decade of breakup albums, Taylor Swift married Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden on Friday — with Adam Sandler, yes, that Adam Sandler, officiating. The market had it at 95%, and traders still poured over $4.5 million into Swift-Kelce bets, including a venue market so certain it paid 84 cents on the dollar. When the safest wager on the board is “will two people in love get married,” the house still finds a way to take your money. Congrats to the newlyweds — and to everyone who bet the chalk.

🔴 MISS — June payrolls to top 100,000 (market ~63% YES) The economy added a wheezing 57,000 jobs against a ~115,000 consensus — and yet the unemployment rate somehow fell to 4.2%, because half a million people simply stopped looking for work. That’s not a recovery; that’s a mood. The market bet on a warm number and got handed a shrug.

Biggest Whiff of the Week 🔴

Germany at ~80%.

Four-time world champions. Drew 1-1 with Paraguay, lost the shootout 4-3, and flew home in the Round of 32. The market backed the badge, as the market always does — but that badge has now gone three straight World Cups. Germany didn’t just lose; they lost on penalties, the one format where a century of pedigree is worth exactly nothing. Somewhere, a spreadsheet is quietly changing “Germany are elite” to the past tense.

Best Call of the Week 🟢

The Pharaohs, at long last.

Egypt had never — not once — won a knockout match at a World Cup. The market treated that history like a law of physics. Then they drew Australia, went to penalties, and Mohamed Salah strolled to the spot and rolled it straight down the middle like he was paying a toll. Egypt through, 4-2 on penalties, history rewritten by a man who couldn’t be bothered to aim. Anyone who believed the streak would break got the sweetest ticket of the round.

Now Open — go vote

The Round of 16 kicks off today, and the bracket’s already unrecognizable. Three to weigh in on:

• Will the USA reach the quarterfinals? Still the live one from last week — they cleared Bosnia and now draw Belgium, who just erased a two-goal hole against Senegal. Home crowd, real stakes, tougher test. Market around 35%. — yes or no, and why.

• Will the Fed hike rates before year’s end? Update: that ugly jobs report just quieted the whole hike conversation. Two weeks ago, they were signaling a raise; a 57k print has the market drifting back toward “never mind” — down around 40%. Which way does the pendulum settle? — yes or no, and why.

• Will anyone top 70 hot dogs at Nathan’s today? It’s the Fourth, which means grown adults inhaling frankfurters for sport. The record is a genuinely alarming 76 in ten minutes. The line sits near 70.5. Can a human stomach clear it again? — yes or no, and why.

See you next week. The giants are dropping like flies — Germany, the Dutch, and every favorite who forgot the tournament started. At least the wedding went to plan. Happy Fourth.

— The Spread Sheet

America turns 250 tomorrow. Two and a half centuries ago, a group of men in Philadelphia signed a document promising life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The country has spent every year since refining that third clause. Happiness turned out to be vague, hard to measure, and impossible to settle in USDC, so the modern citizen has upgraded it. The pursuit of happiness is now the pursuit of prediction market fortunes, a founding ideal you can actually resolve by 11:59 PM ET. Jefferson wanted an informed public. He got 2,300 active markets on whether a captured head of state gets convicted and how many goals a 38-year-old Argentine scores before he retires. Close enough. Nothing says freedom like the God-given right to put your rent on a foreign election you learned about nine seconds ago. Happy birthday to the only nation on earth that would look at its own semiquincentennial and ask what the over/under was. This week, three markets that map the American condition.

TRADE 1: Largest IPO by Market Cap in 2026?

The crowd has already crowned the year’s biggest public offering, and it belongs to a company that has spent two decades avoiding the public markets. SpaceX sits at 86% to be the largest IPO by market cap in 2026. The number is doing two jobs. It prices a near-certainty that Elon Musk finally takes the rocket company public, and it prices the belief that nothing else on the docket comes close. This is the market betting that the single largest capital event of the year is a company whose founder has repeatedly said he is in no hurry to sell it to anyone. Traders are effectively front-running a mind change. The edge, if there is one, sits in the 14% that says he stalls again, which he has done before, and which costs the “yes” holders everything if he does it once more.

TRADE 2: World Cup Golden Boot Winner

The one sports market on today’s board is really a history market. Lionel Messi leads the Golden Boot at 44%, with Kylian Mbappé right behind at 40%, and $41.8 million in volume riding on which of them scores the most goals in what is almost certainly Messi’s final World Cup. They are tied at six goals apiece. Messi has already rewritten the record book once this tournament, passing Miroslav Klose for the most World Cup goals in history and setting the record for consecutive matches scored. Mbappé is chasing something no man has done, a second Golden Boot, with a France side built to feed him chances into the final. The market is pricing a two-man duel between the sport’s departing king and its heir, and the funny part is what it ignores. No male player has ever won this award twice, which means the 40% on Mbappé is a bet against the entire history of the tournament. The value, as always in this race, sits with the striker nobody is naming yet, because the Golden Boot has a long habit of going to a Klose or a James Rodríguez the market forgot to price.

TRADE 3: Maduro Guilty of All Counts?

The most consequential market on the board resolves on a courtroom, not a headline. Nicolás Maduro, captured earlier this year in the operation that has already produced two separate insider-trading prosecutions on this very platform, now faces trial, and the crowd is pricing whether he is convicted on every count. The layers here are the story. Polymarket hosted the bets that a U.S. Special Forces member and a Google engineer allegedly placed using confidential information about the operation that led to this trial. Now the same platform runs the market on the verdict. A prediction market that became evidence in a federal case is now trading the outcome of the case. There is no cleaner illustration of what this industry has become: not a sportsbook, not a game, but a live financial instrument attached to the machinery of the state, settling on whether a captured head of state goes to prison for the rest of his life.

About The Spread Sheet
Your comedic entry into what is trending on prediction markets. Hosted by Noah Gardenswartz.
Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, power and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: YES or NO.

FOLLOW
Web: spreadsheetshow.com
X: x.com/spreadsheetshow
Instagram: instagram.com/spreadsheetshow
TikTok: tiktok.com/@spreadsheetshow
YouTube: youtube.com/@spreadsheetshow


DISCLOSURES
Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.

Prestige cinema arrived in a Porta-John this week. Jackass: Best and Last opened at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, the highest score in franchise history, and critics reached for the word “poignant” to describe a movie whose climax is a robot administering a prostate exam. Kalshi traders spent the week pricing whether a film built to punish the human body could clear the Certified Fresh line at 75%. It cleared it by 18 points.

Comedian Cole Garrett joins Noah to sort out how a 25-year run of groin shots and staple guns ended as the best-reviewed entry in the series, and whether a Tomatometer designed for prestige means anything when pointed at Johnny Knoxville taped into a box and rolled down a flight of stairs.

In This Episode

“Jackass: Best and Last” Rotten Tomatoes score? The only contract on the board that resolved basically live. Kalshi had the finale hovering around 64 to 68% Fresh with the embargo lifting the day of taping, and 75% was the Certified Fresh line. Then the reviews landed and the number went the other way: Jackass: Best and Last opened at 93% Fresh, the highest score in franchise history, beating Jackass Forever’s 86%. Critics used the word “poignant” on a movie built to punish the human body. A film engineered to fail cleared the prestige bar with room to spare. Cole’s take: does a prostate-exam movie deserve Certified Fresh, or did the critics get sentimental about a clip show? The market already answered. The robot cracked 75.

#1 searched person on Google this year? Trump at 18% is the favorite (over Bad Bunny at 15%) having topped Google’s year-end list three years running, with Bad Bunny rising on his Super Bowl moment and Elon Musk the volatile value pick. It measures who broke the most news, not who did the most good.

Mike Vrabel out as Patriots Head Coach by Dec 31, 2026? Polymarket has it near 10% Yes, which is the cleanest work-life split in sports. Vrabel took a 3-14 roster to AFC East champions, a Super Bowl appearance, and a second Coach of the Year, and the only thing that can end him is an off-field affair scandal involving an NFL reporter. His MVP-candidate quarterback went on record calling him a great human being. Best coach in football, the worst couple of months of his life. Cole lets us know what is Dad probably thinks about Mike as a he’s a HARDCORE Pats fan.

A very special King of the Trolls x Cooked in the Comments crossover

New pandemic in 2026? The contract is the internet’s anxiety meter, sitting around 10%, which to a comment section reads as a personal insult. Cole works this one as the comment-section anthropologist, translating every “it’s happening again” reply guy into English and crowning the most unhinged take. Are we buying the apocalypse or selling the cruise ship?

King of the Trolls x Cooked in the Comments

The pandemic segment doubles as a crossover event. Cole reads the doomer-posters, Noah plays referee, and the most deranged comment gets its moment.

About The Spread Sheet
Your comedic entry into what is trending on prediction markets. Hosted by Noah Gardenswartz.

Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, power and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: YES or NO.

FOLLOW
Web: spreadsheetshow.com
X: x.com/spreadsheetshow
Instagram: instagram.com/spreadsheetshow
TikTok: tiktok.com/@spreadsheetshow
YouTube: youtube.com/@spreadsheetshow

DISCLOSURES
Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.

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Timestamps:

0:00 Intro and monologue

4:49 What will "Jackass: Best and Last" score on Totten Tomatoes?

13:14 #1 searched person on Google this year

19:36 Will Mike Vrabel be fired by the New England Patriots by the end of the year?

27:47 New pandemic in 2026?

THE SPREAD SHEET

Your comedic entry into what is trending on prediction markets. Hosted by Noah Gardenswartz.

Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, power and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: YES or NO.

FOLLOW

Web: spreadsheetshow.com

X: x.com/spreadsheetshow

Instagram: instagram.com/spreadsheetshow

TikTok: tiktok.com/@spreadsheetshow

YouTube: youtube.com/@spreadsheetshow

DISCLOSURES

Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.

Some images and visual elements in this episode were generated or modified using AI tools.

The weekend is over, the markets are open, and the largest prediction market in the world has become a prediction market. The question on the board: will the agency that protected Polymarket last year actually investigate it this time?

Here is what happened. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator that oversees prediction markets, has opened a new and extensive investigation into Polymarket, its third inquiry into the company in recent years. The timing is the story. A year ago, under a different acting chair, the same agency overruled its own enforcement attorneys and killed a separate probe into whether Polymarket was illegally serving US customers. That acting chair reportedly blocked her own staff from issuing new subpoenas and shut the inquiry down. Within months, the probes were dropped, Polymarket cleared the path to a US platform, and the company landed funding from an investment firm partly owned by Donald Trump Jr., who came aboard as an unpaid adviser.

Now a new chairman is in the chair, Congress is asking pointed bipartisan questions about insider trading on these platforms, and the agency that waved Polymarket through is suddenly investigating it. This is the same company that, weeks ago, got caught paying creators to film fake winning trades on counterfeit copies of its own website, and that this week was also hit with a multimillion-dollar wallet exploit and a fresh consumer lawsuit. A platform whose entire pitch is a real, auditable, skin-in-the-game order book has now produced fake trades, real losses, and a regulator whose willingness to act is itself the most interesting wager in the building. Through all of it, the company says it remains “committed to maintaining accurate, fair and transparent markets.” The order book on that claim is open.

To the week ahead, where at least the scores are real.

TRADE 1: USA Into the Round of 32
Host nation through. Knockouts begin this week.

The home team is alive, and it got there the most American way available. The US won Group D and reached the Round of 32 despite losing its final group match to Türkiye, which is the sporting equivalent of failing the last quiz and still passing the class. The draw cracked open in their favor: they face Bosnia and Herzegovina, which slipped through as one of the eight best third-place teams. On paper, winnable, which historically is precisely the moment the USMNT discovers a new way to devastate a nation that just bought in. The broader market remains unmoved on a deep run, still pricing the US as a low-single-digit longshot to lift the trophy behind France, Argentina, Spain, England, and Brazil. The group stage was a bloodbath for the favorites. Germany topped its group but lost to Ecuador, who advanced as a best third-place team, and Scotland went home without scoring a single goal against Brazil, ending the one fairytale anyone outside Brazil was rooting for. The Tartan Army drank Boston dry on the way in and left with nothing but the memory. Very on brand for everyone involved.

TRADE 2: 2026 Men’s Wimbledon Winner
Play begins today. Current odds: Jannik Sinner ~72%, Novak Djokovic ~9%

Wimbledon serves its first ball today, and the men’s market has already filed the paperwork. Jannik Sinner enters as a runaway favorite around 72%, with Novak Djokovic a distant single-digit second. The one storyline that could have made it competitive evaporated last month, when two-time champion Carlos Alcaraz was ruled out with a wrist injury, flattening the draw into a formality. The comedy is Djokovic. The most decorated man in the bracket is now a longshot, the greatest of all time quietly reclassified as a value bet, priced like a guy hoping to survive to the second week. If you think the old king has one more fortnight left in those legs, that is the only edge on the men’s side, because the rest of the draw is just waiting to lose to Sinner politely.

TRADE 3: 2026 Women’s Wimbledon Winner
Current odds: Aryna Sabalenka ~32%

The women’s draw is the market the men’s side wishes it were. Aryna Sabalenka leads at just 32% in a genuinely open field, which means the crowd is shrugging in unison. No coronation, no inevitable champion, no injury that pre-decided the bracket. The contrast is the joke: the men’s tournament is a press release and the women’s tournament is an actual sporting event, the exact opposite of what a casual fan tuning in for two weeks of grass would assume. And there is something perfectly fitting about an American prediction market letting you trade the most restrained event on earth, where they pause for rain, bow to the Royal Box, and queue overnight for the privilege of suffering with dignity. The British built a cathedral to the noble loss. We built a way to short it. If you want certainty, take the men’s. If you want a real contest, the women’s draw is the only Wimbledon market with edge left.

That’s the bell. Wimbledon serves today, and the biggest prediction market on earth is now waiting on a verdict it cannot trade. Have a great week. Enjoy the games, where the order book is the scoreboard and nobody had to fake the final.

The Scoreboard

The market went 3-for-5 as the group stage slammed shut — clean on the comeback stories (Spain’s redemption, Mexico’s perfect run) and the one lock nobody could blow (a No. 1 pick everyone saw coming). Then a German powerhouse and a USMNT finale reminded everyone that “favorite” is just a word with good PR. Two weeks in, the chalk is running out of excuses.

The Calls

🟢 HIT — Spain to win their group (market ~58% YES). Last week, we handed Spain the Biggest Whiff trophy for getting held by Cape Verde. Apparently, they read it. They answered with a 4-0 over Saudi Arabia and a 1-0 over Uruguay to win the group going away. Nothing motivates the second-best team on earth like being publicly embarrassed by a newsletter. You’re welcome, Spain.

🟢 HIT — Mexico to top Group A (market ~64% YES). The hosts went a perfect three-for-three, capped by a 3-0 dismantling of Czechia — no draws, no red-card circus, just Mexico handling business while the rest of the tournament lit itself on fire. The market called it and got to enjoy the rare calm.

🔴 MISS — Germany to beat Ecuador (market ~68% YES) Germany — four-time champions, perpetual machine — got stunned 2-1 by Ecuador. The market backed the badge. That badge has now been to consecutive World Cups and packed light both times. At some point, “historically great” stops covering the spread.

🟢 HIT — AJ Dybantsa to go No. 1 in the NBA Draft (market ~92% YES) The Washington Wizards took the BYU phenom first overall, exactly as every mock draft since roughly his eighth birthday predicted. In a week where every favorite face-planted, the one true lock was a teenager joining a team that won 18 games. The market nailed the easiest call on the board, and we’re counting it. A win’s a win.

🔴 MISS — USA to win their final group match (market ~60% YES). Türkiye beat the USA 3-2 in the finale, which sounds like a catastrophe until you notice the Americans had already won the group and were essentially running the JV. The market took the win; the bench took the L; the standings shrugged. Lost the battle, won the war, confused the bettors.

Biggest Whiff of the Week 🔴

Uruguay at ~85%.

Uruguay arrived as a genuine dark horse to win the whole thing and a near-lock to escape a group containing a tournament debutant and Saudi Arabia. They escaped nothing. Two draws, a loss to Spain, and an early flight home — finishing with more cards on the final day (four, including a red) than they managed goals in the entire tournament (three). The market priced a contender. Uruguay delivered a cautionary tale.

Best Call of the Week 🟢

Cape Verde. Still.

The market wrote them off before kickoff — a debutant ranked 67th, a country with fewer people than Fresno. They proceeded to draw all three matches, including the 0-0 over Spain we crowned a whiff last week, finish second, and become the smallest nation ever to reach a World Cup knockout round. They didn’t win a single game, and they’re still dancing. Their reward: Lionel Messi and Argentina. Anyone who believed got a fairy tale and a ticket to the Round of 32.

Now Open — go vote

The group stage is done, and the knockouts start tomorrow — single elimination, no second chances, maximum chaos. Three to weigh in on:

• Will Cape Verde shock Argentina in the Round of 32? The smallest nation ever to make the knockouts, drawn against Messi and the holders. The market gives them around 7%. Your heart says yes. Your spreadsheet is begging you to stop. — yes or no, and why.

• Will the USA reach the quarterfinals? The hosts won their group and open against Bosnia. Home soil, real talent, a draw that cracked open. Market around 30%. — yes or no, and why.

• Will the Fed hike rates before year’s end? Two weeks ago they flipped from “maybe cut” to “probably hike,” and the market’s leaned that way since — around 55%. Talk, or trigger? — yes or no, and why.

See you next week. The knockouts start now, so nothing is safe. Just ask Uruguay.

— The Spread Sheet

Two weeks into the World Cup, the biggest score has nothing to do with soccer. Across the first half of June, Kalshi and Polymarket together accounted for roughly 75% of all sports wagering activity, outpacing the growth of the traditional sportsbooks even as DraftKings posted a 117% year-over-year jump and FanDuel rose 48%. The two prediction-market giants logged a 13% week-over-week volume increase to around $7 billion, a 3x jump in first-time customers, and an 87% rise in overall volume since the tournament kicked off on June 11. The legal cheat code is the whole engine. Putting $100 on France at DraftKings is gambling, regulated and geofenced state by state. Buying a “France wins” contract at the same price on Kalshi is trading, legal in all fifty states for anyone old enough to vote. Same bet, same scream at the same penalty kick, but one of them gets to cosplay as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Which brings us to the standings that actually matter. In a tournament featuring 48 nations, the two biggest winners so far are both American. The first is the American character itself. It took soccer fans from 47 other countries showing up on our soil to throw it into relief: the Scots drank Boston dry and then cleaned up after themselves, the Japanese tidied an entire stadium with their own trash bags, the Norwegians rowed up a subway escalator, and against all that earnest global charm, America revealed its essence by looking at the most-watched event on the planet and asking, with total sincerity, what the over/under was. Forty-seven nations brought their flags and their songs. We brought an order book.

The second winner is the order book. Prediction markets have spent this World Cup doing the single most American thing there is, which is quietly capturing attention and market share while everyone else was watching the game. France has emerged as the clear favorite at around 20%, with Argentina surging past Spain and England into second. But the real story is not who wins the trophy. It is that a product most people had never heard of two years ago is now eating the gambling industry’s lunch in broad daylight and calling it a financial instrument. To the markets, where America is, as always, undefeated at monetizing things.

USA Into the Round of 32

Host nation through. Knockouts begin this weekend.

The home team handled business, in the most American way available. The US won Group D and reached the Round of 32, despite dropping its final group match to Türkiye. Lose the last test, still pass the class. Next up is Bosnia and Herzegovina, which squeaked through as one of the eight best third-place teams. On paper, a winnable draw, which historically is exactly when the USMNT discovers a fresh way to devastate a nation that just bought in. The market remains politely unconvinced about a deep run, still pricing the US as a low-single-digit longshot to lift the trophy. The gap between “won our group” and “won’t win the tournament” is the entire American soccer experience in two numbers, and the next chapter lands this weekend. Meanwhile the group stage was a graveyard for favorites. Germany topped its group but lost 2-1 to Ecuador, and Scotland went home without scoring against Brazil, ending the only fairytale anyone outside Brazil was rooting for.

2026 Women’s Wimbledon Winner
Play begins Monday.

Wimbledon serves its first ball Monday, and the two draws could not be more different. Jannik Sinner enters at 72% on the men’s side, with Novak Djokovic a distant 9%. Two-time champion Carlos Alcaraz is out with a wrist injury, flattening the men’s bracket into a formality. The women’s side is wide open. Aryna Sabalenka leads at just 32% in a genuinely contested field. And there is something perfectly on theme about an American prediction market letting you trade the most restrained event on earth, where they pause for rain, bow to the Royal Box, and queue overnight for the privilege of suffering politely. The British built a cathedral to noble defeat. We built a way to bet on it. If you want certainty, take the men’s. If you want an actual contest, the women’s draw is the only Wimbledon market with edge left.

Highest Grossing Movie of 2026?

Current odds: Spider-Man: Brand New Day 56%

The crowd has already handed the year to a man in a costume. “Highest grossing movie in 2026?” is the most active box office market on Polymarket, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day leading at 56% across more than $21.7 million in volume. There is a quiet, beautiful predictability here. Every year the entertainment industry produces thousands of films exploring the full range of human experience, and every year the market correctly bets that the winner will be the eleventh movie about a specific Marvel character. The subtitle is the punchline. A film called “Brand New Day” is the frontrunner precisely because there is nothing new about it: same hero, same web, rebooted again, sold to the same audience that bought it the last ten times. This is the single most efficient summary of the modern box office. The safest trade in pop culture is that the biggest movie of any given year will be a comic book, and the only real suspense is which studio’s superhero gets to count the money. The market is 66% sure it’s Spider-Man. The other 34% is just other men in other costumes

That’s The Closing Bell. The favorites are falling, the host is still alive, and the prediction markets just out-hustled the entire gambling industry while pretending to be a brokerage. Have a great weekend. Forty-seven nations came here to show us who they are. We showed them an order book, and somehow that feels exactly right.

Noah is joined by comedian Emma Willmann, host of Ask Men Anything for Betches and co-host of Inside the Closet with Matteo Lane, for an episode that runs straight through her wheelhouse: longevity that is white people B.S., working-class value instincts, and the the longest delayed video game franchise in human history.

Fresh off her own health-and-wellness kick, Emma takes the prosecutor’s chair on a man who turned his sex life into a lab report, defends the $1.50 hot dog as sacred national infrastructure, and reluctantly respects the grossest athletic event in America. Six markets. Six Yes-or-No verdicts. Let her cook.

Will Bryan Johnson have sex again by June 30? The market sits at 54%, with almost no money behind it and about two weeks on the clock. Bryan Johnson is the “don’t die” biohacker who logs intimacy as a biomarker and posts the data publicly. A companion market on whether he’d do it within a given month has previously closed at 100%. Emma runs it as an interrogation: is this wellness, or a man who found a new way to talk about himself? The verdict question: does he announce it by June 30, and is this health or just content?

Costco increases hotdog price before 2027? The crowd puts a price hike at just 10%, with the no-change side holding around 90%. The $1.50 hot dog and soda combo has not moved since 1985, and CEO Ron Vachris confirmed in March 2026 the price stays put during his tenure. Emma defends the dog as sacred infrastructure and treats any hike as an attack on the community. The deeper bit: the one price in America that refuses to move is a tube of mystery meat at a wholesale club, and the country would riot over that before anything that actually matters. Does the price hold through 2026?

Will the 76 hot dog record be broken on July 4? July 4, Coney Island, Joey Chestnut chasing an 18th title. The separate market on whether he tops 69.5 dogs is priced at 100%, but his own record is 76, he managed 70.5 last year, and the over/under for the day sits around 77.5. Emma is the wellness comic now forced to respect competitive gluttony, and through the Ask Men Anything lens the obvious question lands: why is it always men? Noah keeps calling it a sport. She keeps calling it what it is. Does the record fall?

2026 Men’s Wimbledon Winner Jannik Sinner is the runaway favorite at 72%, with Novak Djokovic a distant 9%. Two-time champion Carlos Alcaraz is out with a wrist injury, which flattened the draw. The market has essentially filed the men’s title as paperwork. Emma and Noah get into the British relationship with Wimbledon: The Queue, the all-white dress code, the royalty in the box, and a national talent for suffering beautifully.

2026 Women’s Wimbledon Winner Aryna Sabalenka leads at just 32%, the most active market on Polymarket’s Wimbledon page. The contrast is the joke: the men’s draw is a coronation and the women’s draw is an actual competition, the opposite of what a casual fan assumes. This is where the real uncertainty lives.

What will happen before GTA VI? The leading outcome is now “GPT-6 released” at around 53%. The market lists real-world events racing a video game’s release date, and the game keeps losing. Emma, proudly not a gamer, reads the list from the everyperson seat while civilization-level events get ranked as more likely than a release window. Does GTA VI actually ship before the next item on the list, and will anyone still care when it does?

Web: https://www.iamemmawillmann.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFZj3VmGqoLRzfztbodvFtw

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmawillmann/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmmaWillmannComedy/

TikTok: https://wwhttps://www.tiktok.com/@iamemmawillmann

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

4:48 Bryan Johnson’s White People B.S.

14:23 Costco Hot Dogs and the American Experience 

18:59 Joey Chestnut and Competitive Eating

26:28 Wimbledon and British Sport Culture 

30:09 What Will Happen Before GTA VI Is Released?

THE SPREAD SHEET

Your comedic entry into what is trending on prediction markets.

Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, power and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: YES or NO.

FOLLOW

Web: spreadsheetshow.com

X: x.com/spreadsheetshow

Instagram: instagram.com/spreadsheetshow

TikTok: tiktok.com/@spreadsheetshow

YouTube: youtube.com/@spreadsheetshow

DISCLOSURES

Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.

Some images and visual elements in this episode were generated or modified using AI tools.

The entire pitch of a prediction market is that money makes people honest. Polls lie, pundits guess, but a person with real cash on the line will tell you the truth because they have something to lose. So there is a deep, almost poetic stupidity to the news that broke over the weekend: Polymarket, the company built on that exact premise, got caught faking the money.

According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, Polymarket paid dozens of mostly college-age creators to film themselves placing trades on near-perfect clone copies of its own website, then coached them to hide that they were being paid. The trades were staged. The winnings were fake. One creator posted a video appearing to win $100,000 betting that Trump would say “McDonald’s” in January; on the actual site, more than fifty real accounts made that same bet and every single one lost. The Journal reviewed over 1,100 videos, found that the ones showing bets were placed on dummy sites, and determined that dozens of the supposed “wins” would have been losses in real life. One of the fake sites was spelled “poiymarket,” with an i, and got quietly pulled offline once reporters started asking questions. A California creator defended the whole operation by comparing it to a fast-food ad, where the burger looks better in the commercial than in the bag: “You’re still going to buy the burger,” he said. The tell on the World Cup version was almost too perfect: the real app listed the “26 World Cup,” while the counterfeit said “2026 FIFA World Cup.” A company whose product is the price of truth could not be bothered to get the spelling of its own truth correct.

This is the same Polymarket that recently compiled a spying dossier on Kalshi titled “The Imitators.” The imitating, it turns out, is a full-service operation. So in honor of the season, every market below is real. We checked the URL. Twice.

TRADE 1: Scotland to Advance from Group C
Wednesday: Scotland vs. Brazil, 6pm ET, Hard Rock Stadium, Miami

On Friday we told you Scotland would either make history or break a million hearts in Foxboro. The hearts have it. Scotland lost 1-0 to Morocco, conceding early to Ismael Saibari and never finding the equalizer despite two loud penalty shouts that went nowhere. Their World Cup dreams are now on the ropes, with Morocco having proven they’re the real deal. Here is the cruelty of the math. Scotland have three points from beating Haiti, which in the new 48-team format might still be enough to sneak through as a best third-place team, except the final group game is against Brazil. The two nations have only met once before at a World Cup, a 3-0 Brazil win in 1998. So a country that waited 28 years to win a single World Cup match now needs to either beat Brazil or pray the tiebreakers are kind. The Tartan Army drank Boston dry on the way in. They may need to do it again on the way out, for entirely different reasons.

TRADE 2: Will the USA Win the 2026 World Cup?
Status: through to the Round of 32, still a deep longshot to win it all

The host nation is quietly handling business. The US beat Australia and reached the knockout rounds even with Christian Pulisic sitting, and cracked the top 10 of the post-group power rankings. Naturally, the hype machine has fully detached from reality. ESPN ran a piece headlined with 13 stats that prove the USMNT will win the 2026 World Cup. The market is not reading that article. Despite home crowds, home stadiums, and a tidy march through the group, the crowd still prices the US as a low-single-digit shot to actually lift the trophy, behind the usual wall of Spain, France, Argentina, England, and Brazil. This is the most American market on the board: a nation convinced its team is destined for glory, trading against a crowd that has politely priced in the round of 16 and a flight home. The gap between the vibes and the odds is the whole country in one chart.

TRADE 3: Pete Hegseth Out as Secretary of Defense by June 30?
Current odds: 1% Yes

For the non-soccer crowd, here is the market calling a bluff in real time. "Pete Hegseth out as Secretary of Defense by June 30?" is sitting at just 1% Yes, with roughly $249,000 traded. One percent. After months of headlines, leak investigations, a Signal scandal, firings, and a steady drumbeat of "this is finally it" coverage, the crowd has looked at all of it and concluded the man is staying exactly where he is. The structural case is the whole story: Hegseth keeps his job unless Trump moves to remove him, Trump has shown no public sign of doing so, and confirming a replacement mid-conflict carries a political cost the market does not believe he will pay. This is the entire value of a prediction market in one number. Cable news has spent weeks implying an exit is imminent. The people with actual money on the line are at 1%, which is the market's polite way of saying the outrage cycle and the order book are two completely different sports. The headlines scream. The traders shrug

That’s the bell. The groups wrap this week, the Round of 32 starts Sunday, Wimbledon serves Monday, and Polymarket is about to audit roughly 140 million views of its own commercials. Have a great week. If a stranger online shows you a video of an easy five-figure win, check the spelling on the website before you check your wallet.

The Scoreboard

The market went 3-for-5 this week — flawless on the chalk it was sure of (a Knicks coronation, a Fed hold) and then trampled by every World Cup favorite who treated winning their opener as optional. The lesson, as always: the market is beatable. Spain can confirm.

The Calls

🟢 HIT — Knicks to win the NBA title (market ~88% YES) Last week, we handed the Biggest Whiff trophy to a 2% Knicks comeback. This week, those same Knicks won the whole thing — 4-1, a Game 5 clincher in San Antonio, Jalen Brunson dropping 45 and the Finals MVP. New York’s first title in 53 years, and they trailed by double digits in every single win of the series. The market saw the coronation coming. It still has no idea how.

🟢 HIT — Fed to hold rates on June 17 (market ~98.7% YES) We flagged this one last week at 98.7%, and the Fed obliged: a unanimous 12-0 hold, the most predictable outcome in all of finance. The twist nobody’s poll caught — the Fed quietly flipped its own forecast from “maybe a cut” to “probably a hike.” They held your hand and picked your pocket in the same afternoon.

🔴 MISS — Uruguay to beat Saudi Arabia (market ~68% YES) Uruguay, a genuine contender, got held to a 1-1 draw by Saudi Arabia and looked personally offended about it. The market had them winning comfortably. Someone should tell the favorites that the World Cup has started.

🟢 HIT — Canada to beat Qatar (market ~75% YES) Canada won 6-0 and presumably apologized after each goal. The market called the win; it did not call a six-spot. Polite nation, ruthless scoreline.

🔴 MISS — Belgium to beat Egypt (market ~70% YES) Belgium, ranked among the best teams on earth, drew 1-1 with Egypt and joined the lengthening line of favorites treating “win your opener” as a gentle suggestion. The chalk had a rough week. The chalk should log off.

Biggest Whiff of the Week 🔴

Spain at ~94%.

Spain walked into its opener as a co-favorite to win the entire tournament and a -1500 lock to beat Cape Verde — a nation playing its first World Cup match ever, ranked 67th, with fewer people than a mid-sized American suburb. Final score: 0-0. The second-best team on the planet got mugged for a point by a debutant, on a day that produced the most draws in a single World Cup date since 1958. The market priced certainty. Cape Verde priced eleven men and a wall.

Best Call of the Week 🟢

Believing the Comeback Kids.

Anyone still holding a Knicks ticket after they fell behind by 29 in Game 4 — the play we crowned last week’s Biggest Whiff — didn’t just win that night. They won the championship. New York erased a double-digit hole in every victory of the series and ended 53 years of heartbreak. The market spent two weeks stunned; the believers spent it getting paid. Conviction, every so often, is a strategy.

Now Open — go vote

Last week’s first call was already resolved — the Fed held right on cue. Three new ones to weigh in on; we’ll see how they land next week:

• Will Spain recover and win the World Cup? They just got held by a country smaller than Fresno, and they’re still one of the favorites — the market gives them somewhere around 13%. Faith or fade? — yes or no, and why.

• Will the Fed actually hike rates before the end of 2026? They just pivoted from “maybe cut” to “probably hike,” and the market is leaning that way now. Do they pull the trigger, or is it all hawkish talk? — yes or no, and why.

• Will “nothing ever happen” in 2026? Yes, we’re asking again. The market is still around 71% sure nothing happens — even after a week that ended a 53-year title drought, watched the second-best soccer team on earth get upset by a debutant, and saw the Fed reverse course. The market has learned nothing. Have you? — yes or no, and why.

See you next week. The market’s not always right — just ask Spain.

— The Spread Sheet

The soccer has been great. The fans have been spectacular. The best thing about hosting a World Cup, it turns out, is not the matches but the global cultural exchange program that shows up uninvited and takes over your city. A week in, the visitors are running the show.

Start with the Tartan Army. Thousands of Scotland fans swarmed Boston in their kilts, marched to the stadium, dropped in on a Red Sox game, and then proceeded to drink the city dry. Bars across Boston ran out of beer entirely, with one taproom placing emergency calls for resupply and the White Bull Tavern reduced to nothing but Bud Light. A Sam Adams taproom manager of three decades said he had never seen anything like it. An entire nation flew across an ocean and treated New England like a closing-time last call that lasted four days.

Then there is Japan, after the Netherlands match in Texas, Japanese supporters stayed behind, pulled out blue trash bags, and meticulously cleaned the stadium, leaving the stands spotless to millions of views online. The Japanese men’s team reportedly left their locker room immaculate without being asked. One fan explained it simply: in Japan, you leave a place tidier than you found it, a habit learned in primary school. Americans watched grown adults voluntarily clean a stadium and reacted as if witnessing magic, which says more about us than about them.

And the rest of the field has been just as good. Mexican street ducks have been adopted as unofficial team mascots, Norwegian supporters were filmed “rowing” their way up subway escalators, and a small pocket of Portugal fans in Lisbon, back at a World Cup after 52 years, came undone with joy in front of the big screen. The tournament has been a month-long reminder that every country shows up as the fullest possible version of itself: the Scots drink, the Japanese tidy, the Norwegians row through a train station, and the Americans stand around filming all of it and asking what the betting line is. Speaking of which. To the markets.

TRADE 1: Scotland to Advance from Group C

Today: Scotland vs. Morocco, 6pm ET, Gillette Stadium

Scotland is doing something Scotland does not do: winning. They beat Haiti 1-0 in their opener, the kind of result that sends an entire nation into cautious, terrified optimism. Here is why it matters tonight. The expanded 48-team format means earning just three points can be enough to reach the knockout stages, and Scotland already has three from the Haiti win. A country that has never once escaped a World Cup group stage in its history is now 90 minutes from doing it, against a Morocco side that just held Brazil to a draw. The favorites have been mortal all week. Brazil, Portugal, and Belgium all failed to win their openers, and Spain drew 0-0 with tournament debutant Cape Verde. This is the environment where a team like Scotland either makes history or breaks a million hearts in Foxboro. Both are very on brand, and the same fans who emptied the bars get to find out which one tonight.

TRADE 2: 2026 Men’s Wimbledon Winner
Current odds: Jannik Sinner 57%, Novak Djokovic 12%

Wimbledon starts June 29 and the men’s market has already filed its paperwork. Jannik Sinner sits at 57%, with Novak Djokovic a distant second at 12%. The one storyline that could have made this competitive evaporated last month. Carlos Alcaraz, the two-time champion, was ruled out with a wrist injury, reshaping the draw and leaving Sinner as the clear favorite to repeat. The genuinely funny line item is Djokovic. The most decorated man in the draw is now a longshot, with traders pricing in a lighter schedule, shoulder concerns, and age-related durability questions. The greatest of all time has been quietly reclassified as a value bet. There is real comedy in a seven-time champion being priced like a guy hoping to reach the second week, and a sneaky wager buried in it if you think the old king has one more fortnight in him.

TRADE 3: 2026 Women’s Wimbledon Winner
Current odds: Aryna Sabalenka 23%

This is the market the men’s side wishes it were. Aryna Sabalenka leads the women’s field at just 23%, the most active market on Polymarket’s Wimbledon page. A 32% favorite is the crowd collectively shrugging in unison. There is no coronation here, no inevitable champion, no wrist injury that pre-decided the bracket. The contrast is the whole joke: the men’s tournament is a press release and the women’s tournament is an actual sporting event, which is the precise opposite of what a casual fan tuning in for two weeks of grass would assume. If you want a market with genuine uncertainty and live edge between now and the final, this is the one on the board.

TRADE 4: Who Will Perform at the World Cup Halftime Show?
Current odds: Active market

Here is the most American sentence in sports this year. “Who will perform at World Cup halftime show?” is among the most actively traded markets on Polymarket’s music page. Soccer does not have a halftime show. Soccer has halftime, during which players drink water and a man paints a line back onto the grass. But the final is on US soil, which means somebody looked at the most-watched sporting event on the planet and thought, you know what this needs? A pop concert and a betting line. The British invented this tournament. The Americans are hosting the final and have already turned the intermission into a Super Bowl spinoff with a prediction market attached. One side built the cathedral, the other side installed a halftime show and asked what the over/under was on the opening act.

That’s the bell. The Scots drank Boston dry, the Japanese cleaned up after everyone, the Norwegians rowed up an escalator, and the Americans turned the whole thing into a wagering opportunity. Have a great weekend. Somewhere in Foxboro, a Scotsman is about to feel something tremendous, and we genuinely cannot tell you which direction.

Episode 4: Michael Yo on Celebrity Engagements, Trillion-Dollar Companies, and Whether the World Makes It to 2027

Noah welcomes comedian and TV personality Michael Yo, fresh off a trip to South Korea, for a fast-moving run through the markets. They cover whether Timothée Chalamet survives dating a Kardashian, who walks away with the most Oscar nominations, which company is sitting on top of the world at year end, whether anything bad actually happens in 2026, and whether the Miami Hurricanes can finally turn promise into a national championship. Each segment ends the only way this show ends: a Yes or No.

In This Episode

Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet engaged in 2026?

Noah and Michael open on the celebrity engagement watch of the year. The market currently gives it a 23% chance, down from a February peak of 59%. The collapse is the funny part. There has been no public sign of trouble, and the two have only been seen together more often, with Kylie recently getting ready mid-flight on a private jet for a last-minute New York date night. The crowd fell in love with the proposal idea in February and has been quietly talking itself down ever since. The final question: does it happen this year, and does Timmy make it out alive?

Most Academy Award nominations in 2026?

A market on which film leads the nominations board, which is really a market on Hollywood’s favorite indoor sport: the For Your Consideration campaign. Michael and Noah get into whether the trophies follow the movie or the marketing budget. Yes or No on the frontrunner.

The most valuable company at the end of 2026?

NVIDIA enters as the runaway pick, with its market cap having pushed above $5 trillion for the first time, making it the world’s most valuable public company on the back of record AI chip demand. The interesting wrinkle is everything underneath it. SpaceX ran an IPO roadshow targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation, Alphabet briefly pushed past $4 trillion, and Apple keeps hitting all-time highs on AI-driven optimism. The throne looks secure. The fight for second is where the money moves. Which company, and why?

Nothing ever happens in 2026?

The most philosophical contract on the platform. A bet on whether the year passes without a genuine catastrophe from a long list of doomsday outcomes. Buying Yes is a bet on humanity having a quiet year. Buying No is a bet that something on the list goes wrong. Michael gives his read on whether he is long on civilization or bracing for impact.

College football 2027 champion?

The closer, and the one Michael has a rooting interest in. Can the Miami Hurricanes finally convert two decades of “this is the year” into an actual title? If not the Canes, who? Yes or No on Miami.

Trade the Markets

Every question in this episode is live. Links above. Odds move fast, so what you see on the show may not be what you see when you click.

About The Spread Sheet

The Spread Sheet is a comedy show built around prediction markets. Each week, Noah Gardenswartz and a comedian guest pull topics straight from the markets, talk them through, and land on a Yes or No. New episodes weekly.

Web: https://www.michaelyo.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelYoComedy

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelyo/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYo/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@michaelyoyo

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro 

5:39 Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet engaged in 2026?

10:12 Which film will get the most Oscar nominations at the 99th Academy Awards?

16:12 Largest Company end of December 2026?

25:29 What will happen in 2026?

30:49 Who will win the 2027 college football national championship? 

THE SPREAD SHEET

The Spread Sheet is a comedy show built on prediction markets, hosted by Noah Gardenswartz.

Each week Noah and a guest take the questions the markets are actually pricing, across sports, pop culture, politics, and tech, and call them. We explain them. We make fun of them. Then we give the verdict: yes or no.

New episodes weekly.

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DISCLOSURES

Not financial advice. Prediction markets discussed for entertainment and editorial purposes. Trade at your own risk and verify all odds independently.

Some images and visual elements in this episode were generated or modified using AI tools.

The weekend is over and the markets are open on the most loaded week of the summer. The Fed meets Tuesday and Wednesday, the World Cup group stage is about to get violent, and the Knicks just did something they had not done since Nixon was in office and we are ready to pick the 2027 winner. Plenty to trade. Let’s go.

TRADE 1: Scotland to Win World Cup Group C
Current odds: Brazil 60%, Morocco 30%, Scotland 11%, Haiti under 1%

Here is the funniest order book at the entire World Cup. Brazil sits at 60% to win Group C, Morocco at 30%, and Scotland at 11%. Now look at where the money actually went. Scotland has pulled in roughly $271,000 in trading volume, more than Brazil’s $227,000 and Morocco’s $224,000, despite being the third choice in a four-team group. The 11% team has attracted the most betting volume in the group. There are two possible explanations. One: a battalion of patriotic Scots has descended on Polymarket to back their nation with their hearts and their wallets. Two: traders genuinely believe Scotland is about to do something historic to Brazil. The smart money says explanation one, which makes this the purest example on the platform of fans confusing loyalty with edge. Scotland has never made it out of a World Cup group stage in its history. The volume says this is the year. The odds say put the kilt away. (For the record, Haiti is in this group at under 1%, drawing $85,000 of its own, which means somebody is also dreaming in Creole.)

TRADE 2: England to Win World Cup Group L
Current odds: England 72%, Croatia 21%, Ghana 7%

England leads Group L at 72-73%, with Croatia at 20-22% and Ghana at 7-8%, a group that looks more competitive than the headline number suggests. The reason this one matters this week is the calendar. England open their tournament against Croatia on June 17 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, the exact same Croatia side that knocked them out of the 2018 World Cup at the semifinal stage. So the market is pricing England as comfortable group favorites while sending them straight into the one opponent that haunts an entire generation of English fans. A 72% group-winner line looks tidy until you remember the first 90 minutes are a revenge match against the team that ended their last real dream. If Croatia win Tuesday, that number moves hard. This is the trade to watch before lunch on the 17th.

TRADE 3: 2027 NBA Champion
Current odds: San Antonio Spurs 22%, co-favorites with OKC

The confetti in Madison Square Garden has not finished hitting the floor and the market has already moved on. The Knicks ended a 53-year title drought on Game 5 night, and the very next morning the 2027 futures board opened with the team they beat, the San Antonio Spurs, as the favorite. Polymarket prices the Spurs at 22% to win it all next year, co-favorites with Oklahoma City. The reigning champion Knicks sit well behind, their veteran core and the brutal depth of the Western Conference dragging their number down despite the ring they just won. Sit with the logic. The team that just lost the Finals is the favorite to win the next one. The case is Victor Wembanyama, who turns 23 in January, flanked by Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper, a core young enough that the market is betting on the version of this team that does not exist yet. This is the purest “buy the future, sell the present” trade in sports. The Knicks won the battle. The market already gave the war to the guys they beat.

TRADE 4: Will the US Rescind the Claude Fable 5 Foreigner Ban?

Buried in Polymarket’s Government section, which hosts roughly 900 active markets, is a contract on whether the US government rescinds the Claude Fable 5 foreigner ban. This is the frontier of prediction markets and the frontier of absurdity meeting in one order book. There is now real money riding on the regulatory status of who is allowed to use a specific AI model, traded next to markets on whether the US captures another world leader in 2026. A year ago the weird markets were about celebrity weddings and video game release dates. Now the weird markets are about which nationalities can log into which neural network. The category has officially caught up to the actual news cycle, which is the most unsettling bullish signal of all. If you understand AI export policy better than the crowd, this is your edge. If you do not, this is a very efficient way to donate money to people who do.

That’s the bell. The Fed talks Wednesday, England get their rematch with destiny on Tuesday, and somewhere a Scotsman is checking his Polymarket balance with the unshakable faith of a man who has never seen his team win anything. Have a great week. Pace yourselves. It’s a marathon, and we are on game two.