Business History · Episode 20 · March 25, 2026 · 36 min
Prediction Markets: The Wild History of Betting on Taylor Swift and Popes
A live mash-up between Business History and Bloomberg's Everybody's Business . On platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket you can bet on just about anything - from Taylor Swift's album sales to whether President Trump will say a certain word in a speech. Many people worry about these new prediction markets, but the concept is far older than some critics might think. We go back centuries to Papal conclaves; hear about how counting drinking toasts stood in for political polling; and learn how the US government tried using betting markets to predict terrorist attacks. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.