Kalshi announced a partnership with CNN in 2025

Kalshi is the first regulated prediction market in the US

Two migrant MIT students, Luana Lara Lopes and Tarek Mansour, shared an interest in hedging against uncertainty—from election outcomes to the Oscar awards. They fought hard for regulatory approval and their company now has a valuation in the billions. The platform has brought prediction markets into the mainstream.

Prediction market Kalshi's CEO Tarek Mansour ​​has said that prediction markets are similar to the stock market—except instead of buying and selling shares of companies, users buy and sell "yes" or "no" on whether an event is going to happen or not.

The 2024 US presidential election was a breakthrough moment for prediction markets

Founded in 2018 by MIT graduates, Kalshi won a federal appeals court ruling in October 2024 that allowed it to offer election contracts in the US. When prediction markets predicted President Donald Trump's win (more accurately than most polls), prediction markets were thrust into the public eye.

Prediction markets convinced regulators they're not gambling, but exchanging commodity futures contracts

Kalshi built a legal case that argues its yes/no bets on real-world events are futures contracts, and the relevant regulator—the Commodity Futures Trading Commission—agreed in 2020. Many states are now suing major prediction markets, arguing this legal case is faulty and obscures the true substance of the business: gambling.

The CEOs of the two top prediction markets have a fierce rivalry

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour and Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan are both billionaire CEOs of the top two prediction markets—but they don't exactly get along. For instance, Mansour reportedly does not say the word "Polymarket" out loud, referring to it as the "non-American, unregulated platform."

Prediction markets—the platforms where users can trade bets that pay out depending on certain event outcomes—have faced questions about insider trading.

Prediction markets and sports betting are not forms of investing, despite how some fans portray them.

Contract prices on prediction markets are generally interpreted as implied probabilities

For example, if a contract trading is at $0.65, that could be read as the market assigning a 65% probability to that event occurring. The most common format for prediction markets is winner-take-all: The contract settles at $1 if the event occurs, or $0 if it doesn't.

Read about when Nasdaq partnered with the London Stock Exchange in 1992, and other key moments in Nasdaq history

The partnership became the first intercontinental linkage between capital markets, setting the stage for worldwide trading amid increasing globalization. Nasdaq separated from its parent company in 2006, becoming a fully independent licensed national securities exchange. A year later, it added the Scandinavian-based Exchange, OMX.

Donald Trump's Truth Social social media platform is launching a prediction market

Named "Truth Predict," the cryptocurrency-based prediction market will allow users of the Truth Social social media platform to place crypto bets on the outcome of certain events (think: sports games, the economy, and political races). Truth Social is primarily owned by President Donald Trump and his family.

Play a game that reveals if investors with a crystal ball make better trades

The "crystal ball" game reveals how well you would do trading stocks and bonds if you could see the front page of the Wall Street Journal one day in advance.

View live conflict data, military flights, ship tracking, and market feeds in one dashboard

The free tool pulls from conflict databases, military flight transponders, and maritime vessel trackers, layered over 45 map overlays and 435 news feeds in 21 languages. It is reportedly used by over two million people across 190 countries.

Sports media have also embraced sports betting

For decades, ESPN kept its distance between reporting on games and talking about gambling lines. Sports teams refused to have franchises in Las Vegas, fearing it would harm the sport. But since 2018, that has changed. ESPN’s personalities regularly pick games, and the company has also launched its own betting app.

Modern prediction markets—the platforms where people can trade bets that pay out depending on certain event outcomes—started in Iowa in 1988.

Use a prediction market profit or loss calculator

In order to calculate how much someone would make from a specific trade on a prediction market, this calculator asks for the purchase price of a given "yes" or "no" prediction, the number of contracts the trader plans to purchase, and more.

See the news with AI-generated data visualizations

Realtime uses generative AI to create immediate data visualizations of news items on its regularly-updated feed, pulling from public data feeds. Peruse stories around sports, economics, politics, and more with the helpful aid of charts and graphs. See the shape of the news with this clever AI tool here.

The prices on prediction markets reflect how the collective forecasts future outcomes.

See the real-time numbers of ships traversing the canal each day

This platform uses satellite data to track chokepoints and trade disruptions along the shipping lanes that crisscross the globe. Search for data from more than 1,600 ports, or run the climate scenario simulator.

Prediction markets help people bet on almost anything—which can be controversial

Critics point to incidents such as traders placing bets on the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's capture and the two people in Israel who were charged on suspicion of using classified information to place bets about military actions.

What’s up with the new Texas Stock Exchange?

The two biggest stock exchanges in the U.S. are both based in New York—the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq. But a potential new “Texas Stock Exchange”—which would be based in, you guessed it, Texas—could change that. To find out more about the project, backed by enormous companies such as BlackRock and Citadel, watch this video.

San Diego Comic-Con will expand internationally in 2025

September 2025 will mark the inaugural global edition of San Diego Comic‑Con—marking the convention’s first expansion outside the US. The event will offer 300 hours of programming and is expected to draw around 60,000 fans.

By 2022, Meta was betting strongly on a metaverse strategy for its products

Moving beyond the controversies over fueling misinformation, division, and harm worldwide, Mark Zuckerberg expressed optimism about technology's role in connecting people. Meta's multibillion-dollar investments in integrative AR and VR technologies have further evolved its founder's vision.

Visualizing the AI investment wave

This data visualization from Reuters shows how massive AI investment has become by December 2025—revealing that, in today’s dollars, spending has surpassed the combined total of the Apollo program and the Manhattan Project.

How prediction markets differ from sportsbooks matters for regulation

There are a number of differences and similarities between sportsbooks and prediction markets, despite both allowing people to bet on outcomes for sports-related events. For instance, prediction markets typically earn revenue through transaction fees rather than taking directional exposure to outcomes.

CNET previews CES 2026

This CNET preview outlines what’s coming at CES 2026—from major showcases by Samsung, Sony, LG, and Lenovo to expected trends in AI, chips, digital health, mobility, and robotics.

Reimagining YouTube as cable TV, complete with channel-surfing

The site streams YouTube content as if it were broadcast television, providing the ability to flip through channels and enter videos mid-stream, and you also can't easily skip ahead. The product is designed in part to bring back serendipity to video discovery.

The idea that the median estimate of a group can be more accurate than individual expert estimates is called the 'wisdom of the crowd,' and dates back to the early 1900s.

In 2023, OpenAI spent $520 million on ChatGPT

The ongoing development and refinement of new AI models requires larger datasets and processing more parameters between words and subwords to improve the accuracy of generated content. New startups are expected to harness this technology to provide unthought-of products and services.

See a web of circular investments among major AI industry players like Nvidia and OpenAI, as many top AI companies provide significant investments to one another.

What are smart contracts?

Smart contracts are potentially one of the most useful tools associated with blockchain, and they can enable the transfer of everything from Bitcoin and fiat currency to goods transported around the world. Here’s what they do and why they’re likely to gain traction.

Some experts equate prediction markets to the new crack cocaine of gambling addiction

An addiction psychiatrist at UCLA says betting apps are far more potent than traditional gambling, citing a 19-year-old patient who lost $180,000 and hadn't left campus in a year, cycling through sports bets, crypto, meme stocks, and prediction markets on his phone. This interview explores the extreme edge of the nascent industry.

The SEC recently approved bitcoin ETFs in landmark investing decision

In January 2024, the US Securities and Exchange Commission made history when it decided to allow fund issuers to launch bitcoin ETFs. This new class of exchange-traded fund tracks spot bitcoin prices, essentially allowing investors to hold bitcoin without actually having to buy the crypto.

Bluesky is gaining momentum by offering users full control over their experience

Controversial changes made by Elon Musk to X have inspired an exodus from that platform and growth in Bluesky. The latter's open-source model gives users customizable feeds, portability between services, and a "billionaire-proof" design that prevents corporate takeover.

FTX, one of the world's largest crypto exchanges, collapsed in 2022

As crypto markets declined during the post-pandemic slowdown, Sam Bankman-Fried propped up the markets with billions he'd earned leading FTX, one of the largest crypto exchanges. Then, in one of the most rapid financial implosions in modern history, the exchange collapsed as investors rushed to withdraw money.

As fantasy football grew more popular, the NFL began adapting

By the late 1990s, CBS, ESPN, and Yahoo had all launched their fantasy platforms, allowing the game to grow even more popular. By 2009, the NFL took note and began offering coverage that explicitly focused on fantasy metrics, including “RedZone,” a popular Sunday show that allows viewers to tune into the most crucial moments from around the league—or across their fantasy rosters.

See the schedule and headline keynote speakers for CES 2026

CES 2026 features keynote speakers including entrepreneur and "All-In" podcast cohost Jason Calacanis, and Lenovo Chairman & CEO Yuanqing Yang—part of a lineup spotlighting voices shaping the future of tech and business.

A chat with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan

In a conversation with Bloomberg, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan maps out how the company is taking what it’s learned thus far and embedding itself into the “lean-back” TV viewing experience.

Some venture capitalists believe cryptocurrency will revolutionize global finance

Some of the brightest minds at Andreesen-Horowitz, one of the country’s leading venture capital firms, believe the cryptocurrency ecosystem will revolutionize global finance in the coming decades. This podcast recounts, through their view, the history of crypto, how it works, and trends they see emerging in the future.

Listen to Palantir CEO Alex Karp's outlook for how AI will change the economy.

Crypto ETFs are driving cryptocurrency adoption

In 2024, the SEC approved ETFs that track the price of bitcoin called spot bitcoin ETFs. These funds have since significantly increased investment inflows into cryptocurrency markets.

NASA's GUARDIAN software uses changes in satellite navigation signals and AI-powered detection algorithms to anticipate tsunamis and provide real-time alerts to at-risk communities before the phenomena are detected by tidal sensors.

Experts suggest the industry could be a $45B business

Sports betting used to primarily consist of who would win and the points spread, but the rise of online betting apps has fueled a substantial increase in parlay bets. "Existing markets are still growing at a rapid clip," said Noah Naparst, who evaluates sports-betting companies for Goldman Sachs. "So we’re not mature yet, but we’re not in the early wildcat days of the market anymore, either.”

Visualizing the financial troubles of FTX at the time of its bankruptcy

Just before Sam Bankman-Fried declared FTX bankrupt in November of 2022, he sought to raise funds quickly to try to save the cryptocurrency exchange. As part of that attempt, he sent around a glimpse of the exchange's current balance sheet, which showed the company had liabilities of $9 billion with only $900 million in liquid assets. Check out the visualization here.

Prediction market Polymarket's CEO dropped out of New York University

Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan started building Polymarket when he was 21. Polymarket has been backed by billionaire investors such as Peter Thiel and Vitalik Buterin.

OpenAI helped kick-start an AI arms race in Silicon Valley

Led by CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI's mission is to "ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity" by making its products open to all users. In 2023, the $86B company behind the chatbot ChatGPT consisted of a for-profit arm under its nonprofit governing board.

Read about Palantir's early days—from a Stanford University dorm to an investment from the CIA

Palantir was originally founded after the 9/11 attacks as a private-sector solution to the government's growing need for advanced intelligence. One of its earliest investors was In-Q-Tel, the CIA's non-profit venture capital firm.

Why cryptocurrency matters from Andreesen Horowitz general partner

In this hourlong video, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) General Partner Chris Dixon discusses "Crypto Networks and Why They Matter," giving an overview of the cryptocurrency space, the transformative implications of its technology, and the potential for cryptocurrency networks to lead a new wave of innovation.

Watch a rare early interview with Palantir CEO Alex Karp

Prior to Palantir's public listing in 2020, CEO Alex Karp did not give many interviews. In a rare interview from 2009, Karp discussed the dominance of American technology, his academic background, and the founding idea of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs as key players in aiding the fight against terrorism.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s keynotes have become a main event at CES

Watch Jensen Huang’s 2025 CES keynote, where he unveiled major advances in AI and GPU technology. His presentations now draw global attention, blending product reveals with sweeping visions of the future of computing.

In 2024, the league signed a 11-year deal with Disney, Amazon, and NBC Universal

The $2.2B deal was widely applauded in the media, but the Players Association questioned how the NBA arrived at the valuation and why the deal gives players less than 10% of total revenue compared to the NBA’s 50%.