The most interesting thing to me is that these odds shifted because of the polls, not in advance of them. Both Kalshi and Polymarket like to portray themselves as more accurate polls, not something that moves because of the polls. Both platforms have claimed to be “the news, but faster,” in so many words. Kalshi and Polymarket took a bunch of victory laps for their odds favoring Donald Trump when he won the November presidential election. Polls, after all, had shown the race as a coin flip between him and Kamala Harris.

Prediction markets offer a real-time look at probabilities, and they won’t always get the outcome right. And that’s a valuable function in the world! But here it’s hard to see prediction markets as anything but reacting to the news, not being ahead of it.