Prediction Market Industry Considers Conflicting Futures
The prediction market industry is split on the value of 2025’s expansion into many new topics, from sports to military events.
Augur co-founder Matt Liston posted an X thread on Monday evening reflecting on the state of prediction markets. He warned about the deaths of despair that could result from the growth of prediction markets in sports without guardrails.
Most of what Kalshi and Polymarket offer is sports betting — markets that surface almost no new information beyond what sportsbooks already produce. A market on an election or inflation outcome aggregates information that’s genuinely hard to get elsewhere. A market on a baseball…
— Matt Liston (@no__________end) March 23, 2026
Liston is developing a project in a space he terms “cognitive finance.” In this space, AI traders and human analysts would work together to create forecasts and find correlations between events. Liston hopes to address the free rider problem in prediction markets: that customers pay to trade but anyone views the forecast at no cost.
Meanwhile, Congress is paying more attention to prediction markets.
New bills, new guardrails
Sen. Adam Schiff and Sen. John Curtis introduced a bill that would prohibit sports contracts under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) on Monday.
Kalshi and Polymarket also announced new guardrails. Polymarket began by announcing its new integrity rules targeting insider trading. Kalshi announced its own expansion of technology that preemptively blocks prohibited users from trading in sports and political markets they’re connected to on Monday afternoon.
These efforts have not impressed the most vocal congressional voices. Sen. Chris Murphy called Kalshi’s pre-screen features “silly” and “whitewash.” Suspiciously large S&P and oil futures trades five minutes before Trump announced he would hold off on additional strikes on Iran followed Sen. Murphy’s criticism.
BREAKING: Just five minutes before Trump’s announcement to halt the attacks on Iran, massive trades reportedly hit the market.
In one move, $1.5 billion in S&P 500 (ES) futures was bought while $192 million in oil (CL) futures was sold.
These orders were 4–6x larger than…
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) March 23, 2026
That hasn’t stopped Polymarket from trying to prepare itself to re-enter the US market with a sustainable business.
New Polymarket fees
Polymarket announced a new fee structure on Monday. These are taker fees that will fund the platform’s maker rebate program. Polymarket will not charge fees on geopolitical or world event markets, and the updated fee schedule will go into effect on March 30
It’s an increase in fees from the low or no-fee markets that populated much of the platform. Polymarket now has a source of revenue that could prepare it for a successful US launch. Its US app remains in beta and focused on sports.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly numbered the prediction market bills introduced in Congress.