The Prediction-Market Bettors Who Turned Election Night Into a Real-Time Casino

Much of the betting appeared recreational—and Kalshi and Polymarket didn’t forecast any big surprises ahead of Election Day

By Election Day, Thomas Morrow had bet about $1,200 on prediction markets that Republicans would win their races—excited to have a way to put his money where his mouth was.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to prove very clearly that I know what I’m talking about when I make my prognostications about politics to my friends,” Morrow, 64 years old, said Tuesday.

By Wednesday morning, Morrow was down about half—around $640—after Democrats staged a blowout victory in the midterm elections to recapture majorities in both the House and Senate. He was still holding out that Sen. Dan S. Sullivan (R., Alaska) would pull off a win, despite the candidate’s dwindling odds on the markets.

While voters were heading to their polling stations Tuesday, traders were risking sums large and small on a swirl of voter-turnout data, political braggadocio on social media, and—that most perilous of factors—vibes. The result was the first time that U.S. elections, a model for countries around the world, were casino-fied at scale.

Kalshi and Polymarket’s founders have marketed their platforms as more accurate than professional pollsters. But their credibility was on the line after high-profile whiffs here and abroad leading up to the midterms.

The two big platforms correctly predicted that a Blue Wave was coming. Betting markets tend to amplify polls, many of which had made the same forecast. As early votes trickled in and the tilt toward Democrats became clearer, traders piled into the likely-to-win bets, giving the impression that the markets were calling races before polls had closed.

The betting platforms also had some significant miscalculations–often missing the same races...

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