A phone displays crypto prices on the Kalshi app on April 16, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)
The Polymarket prediction market website is displayed on a computer screen, Jan. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Wyatte Grantham-Philips, File)
When Rory McIlroy won the Masters for the second year in a row, Kalshi shared a photo of him on Instagram with the words, “Wait he’s goated.” When a video of NBA player Damian Lillard recovering from an injury circulated online, Kalshi’s main competitor Polymarket posted, “The league is cooked.”
If you don’t know what either of those phrases mean, it’s because you may not be the target audience.
The posts and hundreds of others like it are exposing younger people to prediction market platforms, where users can put money on the line for the outcomes of real-world events — or absurd ones like when the U.S. will confirm that aliens exist or whether Jesus Christ will return before 2027.
