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.

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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 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
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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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

The World Cup kicked off yesterday on American soil, which means millions of Americans are about to spend the next 30 days confidently explaining a rule they learned 20 minutes ago.

The biggest news in prediction markets this week is that the government is finally trying to write rules for them, and the rules are a Rorschach test for how absurd this entire category has become. On June 10, the CFTC published its first proposed framework for prediction markets, opening a 45-day public comment window aimed at defining once and for all what these platforms are legally allowed to let you bet on.

Here is where it gets good. Sports bets mostly survive, because regulators decided they contribute to price discovery and rarely conflict with the public interest. But the proposal moves to ban contracts vulnerable to manipulation, including bets on individual player injuries and specific in-game events, along with markets on military conflicts, terrorist acts, assassinations, and the violent overthrow of political leaders. Read that list again. There is now a federal document whose explicit purpose includes clarifying that you should not be able to buy shares in a coup. We have reached the stage of financial innovation where the adults in the room have to formally legislate that wagering on assassinations is frowned upon.

The timing is not subtle. Federal prosecutors allege one trader used classified military intelligence tied to an operation involving Venezuela’s president to turn roughly $33,000 into more than $410,000 across 13 Venezuela-related bets on Polymarket. That is the kind of trade that gets a category regulated. Meanwhile the business itself has gone fully mainstream. Prediction markets overtook online gambling for the first time, hitting $36.6 billion in Q1, while Kalshi closed a $22 billion Series F and Polymarket is reportedly raising at a $15 billion valuation.

The product is now too big to ignore and too strange to ever fully regulate. Which is exactly why we created The Spread Sheet.

Now, to the markets.

TRADE 1: United States vs. Paraguay
Current odds: USA 50%, Draw 29%, Paraguay 23%

The home team plays tonight, and the market is refusing to get swept up in the moment. Over $3.37 million has traded on this match as of today. Polymarket prices the USMNT at 50% to win, with a 29% draw and Paraguay at 24%. A coin flip, at home, in the opening match of a World Cup the United States is hosting. The crowd is politely declining to believe in destiny. The hesitation is earned: the team lost 5-2 to Belgium and 2-0 to Portugal in the spring, the defense struggled in both, and forward Patrick Agyemang was ruled out for the tournament with an injury. Here is the context that makes the 50% line look almost bearish. Host nations have won 16 of their 23 World Cup opening matches, with only Qatar in 2022 losing. History says the host wins the opener roughly 70% of the time. The market says this host is a coin flip. Somebody is wrong, and you find out tonight at 9pm ET. The broader market is even blunter about the ceiling. The US sits at 1.2% to win the whole thing, and the round of 16 is its modal finish at 55 to 60%, the same wall the program has hit for two decades.

TRADE 2: Will Trump Publicly Insult Someone Today?
Current odds: 94% Yes

On the Trump Daily page, “Will Trump publicly insult someone” was trading at 94% for the day. Ninety-four percent. There exists a market for this, it resolves daily, and it is one of the most actively traded contracts in the entire politics section. It sits alongside companion markets like “Will Trump dance” on a given day. Step back and admire the machine here. Somewhere, a trader is reviewing this 94% line and asking themselves whether today is the day. It is not a bet on whether something improbable happens. It is a bet on whether the sun rises. The only edge available is timing, and the genuinely unsettling part is that the 6% “No” side is not zero, which means the market is pricing a small but real chance the President holds his tongue for 24 consecutive hours. The market has never seen evidence for this. It hedges anyway.

TRADE 3: US Recession by End of 2026?
Current odds: Trending toward “No”

This is the most boring market on Polymarket and that is exactly why it is interesting. Easing financial conditions have pushed model-based recession probabilities down, including the New York Fed’s Treasury-spread gauge to roughly 15% over the next twelve months. The crowd has effectively concluded that despite an active Middle East conflict, oil volatility, and a Fed that openly split 8-4 at its last meeting, the economy will simply keep humming. Polymarket even runs a companion market literally titled “Nothing Ever Happens: 2026,” which is the internet’s entire macroeconomic worldview compressed into a tradable contract. The “Nothing Ever Happens” crowd has been right for years. They have made money betting against catastrophe over and over while everyone else panic-sold. Betting on the apocalypse feels smart and loses money. Betting on Tuesday feels stupid and prints. This market is the purest expression of that lesson on the platform.

TRADE 4: World Cup: Nation to Reach Semifinals
Current odds: Spain, France, Argentina, England, Brazil clustered at top

Spain, France, Argentina, England, and Brazil enter as the leading contenders to reach the semifinals, with the draw placing the top-ranked sides on separate bracket pathways to delay any clash until the final four. The expanded 48-team format means more games, more upsets, and more opportunity for the bracket to do something stupid before July. The smart money is clustered on the same five names every World Cup produces, which means the value, if it exists, is on the team nobody is naming yet. Early match outcomes and round-of-32 form will heavily reshape these odds. Right now the market is pricing reputation. In ten days it will be pricing results. The gap between those two things is where the weekend money gets made.

That’s the bell. The World Cup is here, the President will insult someone before dinner, and the economy refuses to collapse on schedule. Have a great weekend. If Mexico finishes second in its own group, do not say the market didn’t warn you.

The weekend is over. The markets are open. And the two biggest prediction market companies on earth are currently behaving like rival middle schoolers who got assigned adjacent lockers.

Here is the actual news, which we promise we did not invent. Polymarket has come to suspect that archrival Kalshi might be spying on its lower Manhattan offices, and has compiled a working dossier of roughly a dozen suspicious incidents. The dossier is titled “The Imitators.” A company whose entire business is pricing the probability of future events has produced a binder arguing that a series of coincidences is too improbable to be coincidence. They built a prediction market in a Word document and gave it a title that sounds like a straight-to-streaming thriller.

The evidence is, to be fair, the kind of thing that would make anyone paranoid. Polymarket planned a free grocery pop-up, and Kalshi launched a strikingly similar grocery event about nine days earlier. Polymarket planned to announce a perpetual contracts product on April 21, and roughly an hour before the announcement, a tech outlet reported Kalshi was launching the same thing. But the detail that elevates this from corporate spat to genuine art is the real estate. Paradigm, the venture firm backing Kalshi, rents offices directly across the street from Polymarket’s, with sightlines into parts of the floor and potentially employees’ computer screens. So this spring, Polymarket tinted its windows.

Sit with that. A company that made its name arguing markets see the future more clearly than anyone responded to a competitive threat by making its windows harder to see through. The rivals, naturally, are unbothered. A Kalshi spokesperson called the spying claims “sad and borderline delusional,” and a Paradigm spokesperson called the surveillance concerns “laughable.” The funniest possible outcome is that none of it is true, and Polymarket tinted its windows to hide from a firm that was never looking. The second funniest is that it is all true, and somewhere in SoHo a venture capitalist is squinting through binoculars at a wall of freshly installed privacy film. There is no version of this that is not funny.

The real punchline sits in the numbers. In April 2026, Kalshi pulled ahead with $5.42 billion in trading volume against Polymarket’s $1.99 billion. The company writing the dossier about being copied is currently losing to the company it accuses of copying.

Now, to the markets, where the only surveillance that matters is the order book.

TRADE: World Cup Golden Boot Winner

Current odds: Mbappé favored, Kane close behind

Kylian Mbappé holds the top spot on the back of his 2022 winner’s form and France’s consistent deep runs, while Harry Kane sits close behind thanks to his historic 2018 performance and exceptional club output this season. The Golden Boot goes to the tournament’s top scorer, and this is the rare market where the favorites make actual sense, which on Polymarket is almost disorienting. The expanded 48-team format means more group stage matches and a larger knockout bracket, so top strikers have more opportunities than ever to pile up goals. The genuinely interesting name is Erling Haaland. Norway are not expected to go deep, which means Haaland needs to be extraordinary in a very short window. That is the whole trade in one sentence: the best pure goalscorer alive, attached to a team that may not survive the group stage. He is a man who could score five goals and still be home by July 1. If you want the value play, it is betting on a great striker to outrun the expectations of his team. Welcome to international soccer.

TRADE: LA Mayoral Election: Who Advances to the Runoff?

Current odds: Bass & Raman 99%, Bass & Pratt 1%

Here lies the mayoral dream of Spencer Pratt, reality TV villain turned wildfire-crisis candidate, priced at a clean 1%. Pratt, whose home was destroyed in the 2025 Palisades Fire, announced his run criticizing the leadership’s wildfire response, and his loss of the home coincided with a price rise from 18% to 23% in January. For one shining moment, the comeback was real. On election night his odds briefly exceeded those of City Councilmember Nithya Raman on both platforms, a dramatic high before an equally dramatic reversal. Then Los Angeles did what Los Angeles does. As the prolonged count ground on, the probability of a Bass-Raman runoff climbed to 99 percent while Bass-Pratt collapsed to 1 percent, and Pratt began publicly criticizing the slow count. The near-final tally: Bass around 34.7 percent, Raman at 27.1, and Pratt at 26.7, close enough to sting forever. He lost second place by less than half a point and is now doing the one thing every reality star knows how to do when the cameras pan away: complaining about the process. The market has seen this episode. It knows how the season ends.

That’s the Opening Bell. Rest up the World Cup lands on American soil this week, which means 48 nations are about to discover what we already know: this country will turn anything into a betting market. Have a great week. Try to make it to Thursday before you put your mortgage on Mbappé.

The most on-brand prediction market story of 2026 arrived this week, and Aaron Sorkin couldn't have written it. George Santos, the former congressman who went to prison on federal fraud charges before Trump commuted his sentence last year, is now under federal investigation for alleged insider trading on Kalshi. Take a moment to appreciate the man’s body of work. This is someone who claimed a Wall Street career at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup he never had, a Baruch College degree he never earned, and a portfolio of 13 rental properties that did not exist while he was actually living at his sister’s place. He said he sacrificed both knees as a volleyball star at a school he never attended. He claimed his mother died in the South Tower on 9/11, though immigration records show she was in Brazil at the time and passed away years later. The fabrications eventually became a 13-count federal indictment for wire fraud, money laundering, and theft of public funds, later expanded to 23 counts, with prosecutors describing a career built on relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to Congress and enrich himself. He was serving more than seven years when Trump commuted his sentence last year, and he walked after less than three months inside.

So the natural next move for a man who lied his way into Congress, into prison, and out of prison early was to find the one venue where deceiving the public for money is the literal mechanic of the game. Kalshi flagged it: Santos allegedly bet that he would not attend Trump’s State of the Union, posted “I’ll be in the gallery” on February 23, skipped the speech, and watched the odds break his way. Asked by NPR whether he even had a Kalshi account, Santos said, “I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no.” He then offered that Kalshi’s co-founder is “a fellow Brazilian” he knows personally, and said he would call her to get to the bottom of it. A man under investigation for market manipulation announcing he will personally phone the exchange. We have not seen the results of that call. We assume it went great.

Now, to the markets.

Will Mamdani Open a City-Owned Grocery Store by June 30?

Current odds: 2%

This is a live Polymarket contract sitting inside a category that has traded over $51.8 million, asking whether NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani opens a city-owned grocery store by June 30. The city-run grocery store was a signature campaign promise, and the market has now turned a policy pledge into a deadline bet with money on it. This is prediction markets doing the one thing traditional political coverage cannot: putting a number and a date on whether a politician actually does the specific thing they said they would do. Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist, won on a platform of higher taxes, rent freezes, and free public transit, and his November victory was priced at 93% by Polymarket before election day, a forecast so confident that Bitcoin dropped below $107K as traders reacted to it. The grocery store market is the sequel. The campaign is over. Now the crowd prices the follow-through.

TRADE: Nara Smith Confirmed Pregnant in 2026?

Current odds: 50% Yes

The crowd currently gives a 50% chance that TikTok cooking influencer Nara Smith gets confirmed pregnant in 2026, with about $77,000 traded on the question and resolution scheduled for December 31. Somewhere there is a person who looked at the entire universe of human events, the wars, the elections, the trillion-dollar companies, and decided their edge was the reproductive timeline of a woman who films herself making cereal from scratch. The genuinely funny part is the track record. Smith announced baby number four less than a year after publicly saying she was “absolutely done” having kids, having already done the same thing on a previous pregnancy. So the “No” holders are betting against a person whose entire brand is the surprise fourth act. There is a real concept buried in the joke: this is a market on a stranger’s family planning, priced to the penny, settled by press release. The attention economy has produced a futures contract on a pregnancy, and the order book is open.

The markets never sleep, but you should, ideally before you put your rent on a TikTok pregnancy. Go touch grass, or at least bet on whether someone else will.

Have a great weekend and see you Monday with the Opening Bell!

The weekend is over. The markets are open. Somewhere a trader woke up at 6am on a Monday and opened Polymarket before coffee. This is for that person.

TRADE 1: Fed Decision in June

Current odds: 98% No Change

Prediction markets are pricing a 98% probability that the Fed holds rates at the June 16-17 FOMC meeting, with Polymarket leading 24-hour volume at $29 million of $31 million total across platforms. The backstory behind that consensus is worth understanding. The Fed has held the federal funds rate steady at 3.5% to 3.75% for multiple consecutive meetings, citing elevated inflation and uncertainty from the ongoing Iran conflict, with the FOMC voting 8-4 to hold on April 29, the most dissenting votes on a single FOMC decision since October 1992. The 8-4 split is the actual story here. That is not a unified Fed. Polymarket simultaneously prices a 57% chance of zero rate cuts for all of 2026, against a Fed dot plot that still calls for one. The market is telling you the Fed is talking about cutting and has no intention of doing it. Trade accordingly.

TRADE 2: World Cup Winner

Current odds: France and Spain tied at 17%

France and Spain are deadlocked at 17% each to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with England next at 11%. Over $1.4 billion has traded on the winner market. That is not a typo. Over a billion dollars of collective human opinion has produced a tie between France and Spain, which is the market’s polite way of saying nobody knows anything. The tournament runs June 11 through July 19, with the final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. The World Cup kicks off in ten days. If you have a strong opinion on this, the window to act at current odds is shrinking fast. For reference, Argentina, the defending champion, sits under 10%, and the US is at roughly 1.6%, which is either a massive undervaluation of the host nation or an accurate assessment of American soccer. Probably the latter.

TRADE 3: Clarity Act Signed into Law in 2026

Current odds: 56% Yes

The Clarity Act market is currently the most actively traded legislation market on Polymarket, sitting at 56% Yes. Odds jumped to 90% after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong publicly stated the regulatory process was moving in a positive direction, before settling back as debates over stablecoin reward rules and token classification continued. The Clarity Act is the piece of crypto legislation that would establish which digital assets are securities and which are commodities, a question the industry has been litigating in courts for a decade because Congress refused to answer it. At 56%, the market is saying this probably gets done but is far from certain. The Armstrong pop-and-fade tells you this market is extremely reactive to insider signals. Watch what crypto executives say publicly this week.

The Opening Bell runs Mondays. All odds current as of this morning. This is not financial advice. It is, however, better than whatever your coworkers are talking about.

The week is done. The market never sleeps. Here are four trades worth knowing before you close your laptop and pretend to have a personality this weekend.

If you want a laugh be sure to watch our latest episode with Clayton English on YouTube or now on Spotify!

TRADE 1: US-Iran Nuclear Deal by June 30 Current odds: 52% Yes

Over $3.6 million has traded on this market, and the crowd is sitting at a dead-even coin flip for a deal by end of June. The diplomatic backstory is genuinely wild: Trump sent a nuclear proposal to Iran in mid-May warning that swift progress was necessary to avoid serious consequences, and a reported framework includes ending hostilities, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and initiating 30-to-60-day nuclear talks. Meanwhile, the May 31 deadline is sitting at 7% Yes, which means traders think a deal is plausible but not imminent. The June 30 market at 52% is essentially the market saying: “Something is happening, we have no idea when.” That is either an opportunity or a warning, depending on your risk tolerance and your feelings about the Middle East.

TRADE 2: GTA VI Released Before June 2026 Current odds: Less than 1% Yes

The GTA VI “released before June 2026” market has generated $15 million in trading volume and is sitting at under 1% Yes with five days left on the clock. Fifteen million dollars of collective human intelligence has arrived at the conclusion that this is not happening. The more interesting companion market: “What will happen before GTA VI?” currently assigns a 100% chance to Russia-Ukraine Ceasefire. The crowd has decided a land war in Europe ends before Rockstar ships a video game. That is either a commentary on geopolitics or a commentary on Rockstar’s release schedule. Probably both.

TRADE 3: Balance of Power, 2026 Midterms Current odds: 46% Democrats Sweep

Over $7.3 million has traded on the 2026 midterms balance of power market as of today. A Democratic sweep leads at 45.5%, supported by recent generic congressional ballot polling showing Democratic leads of 4 to 13 points and the historical pattern of the president’s party losing seats in midterms. Republicans enter with a 53-47 Senate edge and a slim House majority, but confront a challenging Senate map and ongoing special election overperformance by Democrats exceeding 10 points relative to the 2024 baseline. Five months out, a 46% probability on a full sweep is a significant number. The market is not hedging. It is taking a position.

TRADE 4: Largest Company End of June Current odds: 86% NVIDIA

The “Largest Company end of June” market currently prices NVIDIA at 86%, which means traders believe the chip that powers every AI demo you have ever sat through will also be the world’s most valuable company when the calendar flips to July. Apple was the default answer to this question for the better part of a decade. The market has NVIDIA as the clear consensus and the SpaceX IPO closing market cap is also among actively traded tech markets. The 14-point gap between NVIDIA and whoever is in second place is the most concise summary of where the economy thinks value lives right now.

The Closing Bell runs Fridays. This is not financial advice. It is, however, more useful than asking your group chat.

Memorial Day. Banks closed. Markets open.

Polymarket doesn’t observe federal holidays. Kalshi doesn’t lower a flag. Somewhere right now a guy in basketball shorts is buying NO on whether Jesus returns before 2027. He has been doing this for six months. The price is two cents.

This week markets price: NBA conference finals, French clay, a California primary, the 2028 Democratic field, the Second Coming. Welcome to the week.

THE NBA

The Knicks are at 98% to win the East. They are up 3-0 on Cleveland and the market closed this series two weeks ago. Pretend to be surprised when it ends.

The West is the real basketball. Thunder up 2-1 on the Spurs. Wembanyama played 49 minutes in a double-overtime Game 1, went 14-for-25, hit twelve of thirteen free throws. The championship market still has the Thunder at 40.5%. Apparently 49 minutes of Wemby is a one-night thing. The Thunder defense is forever.

Game 5 is Tuesday. Find your guy with the Kalshi app open at the barbecue. Don’t make eye contact.

THE FRENCH OPEN

Started yesterday. Sinner is -310 to win it. Those are the second-shortest pre-tournament odds at any Grand Slam since 1990. The shortest belonged to Nadal in 2009. He lost in the fourth round.

Alcaraz is out with a wrist injury. The market did not blink. Sinner is 17-0 on clay this year. The only guy who beats him on dirt isn’t in the bracket. He’s won five straight Masters 1000s. The case against him is that they make you play the matches.

THE CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR PRIMARY

One week out. Polls have Republican Steve Hilton leading. Markets have Xavier Becerra at 62%. They cannot both be right.

Eric Swalwell was the favorite at 73% before he dropped out of the race. Markets have a short memory and an even shorter return policy.

MINNESOTA’S WAR ON MARKETS

Last Monday Minnesota became the first state to make hosting a prediction market a felony. Walz signed it. The CFTC sued him by Tuesday. The federal lawsuit beat the bill home from the signing ceremony.

The law takes effect August 1. Polymarket has a market on whether the law takes effect August 1. It is not the favorite.

Minnesota can’t even make its own ban the favorite.

Polymarket also lists a contract on Walz resigning before 2027 at 7%, and one on him being criminally charged before 2027 at 18%. The governor has more action on his own future than his ban has on the calendar.

Donald Trump Jr. is a paid adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket.

THE WILD CARD

The 2028 Democratic Presidential Nominee market has cleared $1.16 billion in lifetime volume. Newsom sits at 24%. He is termed out of California, eyeing a 2028 run, and last week banned state officials from trading on Polymarket. Polymarket lists his price every day.

THE LOCK

Sinner to win Roland Garros. He’s 17-0 on clay. The only guy who beats him on dirt isn’t in the bracket. At -310 it’s not a bet, it’s a withdrawal slip. Take it.

Noah & The Spread Sheet team spreadsheetshow.substack.com