Bedtime in my house is often filled with kidnapping, murder, and sex cults.
It’s not the most relaxing way to fall asleep each night, but my wife — like approximately every other wife in America — cannot get enough of Netflix documentaries.
So when I climbed into bed Sunday night and she said, “This looks good,” I knew we were reaching some kind of critical mass when it comes to prediction markets, as she had queued up Instadocs: The Prediction Games.
I had watched it twice already in preparation for writing this, and I knew there was no kidnapping, murder, or sex cult-ing to be found. I mentioned this to her as a warning, but she insisted we soldier on.
So I watched it again, turning off my “Jeff Edelstein, gambling columnist” brain and turning on my “Jeff Edelstein, citizen who enjoys sex cult documentary” brain. (Cards on the table, I do like the sex cult ones.)
Basically, I tried to watch this thing through the eyes of a normie. Someone like my wife, who has certainly heard about prediction markets, someone who listened to a New York Times podcast or two about them, and someone who isn’t neck-deep bordering-on-drowning in them.
But first …
But first, let’s look at the doc from the perspective of “one of us.”
I thought it was pretty good, if only telling half the story. As in, outside of Isaac Rose-Berman mentioning the general idea of it all, the producers basically only told the “taker” side. There was no mention of who is on the other side of the trades. Susquehanna remains a river to the general public.
You know who also remains a metaphorical river? DraftKings, Underdog, NoVig, FanDuel, and every other prediction market out there. Nary a mention of anyone outside Kalshi and Polymarket.
There was also a definite “this is a thing, and it will always be a thing” vibe to the doc. Namely, there was no mention of the probability of the U.S. Supreme Court getting involved when it comes to sports markets, while containing only passing mention of the multitude of state lawsuits.
Actually, the more I look at my notes, the more the “sports” aspect of it was … a little tamped down. There was Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour’s statement on it — “Sports have been an amazing propeller. I mean it’s massive” — but virtually the entire second half of the doc was about the non-sports controversies.
But yes — all in all, I thought it did a pretty good job (in 35 minutes) of giving a bird’s eye view of where we’re at, how we got here, and what it is. Meat was left on the bone, but again: “Instadoc” is in the title. This was not meant as a be-all, end-all story.
Normie time
OK, now time to slip into my wife’s sleepwear. So to speak. (Are you listening, Netflix documentary team?)
I have five takeaways from this if I were watching this as a normal human being. In no particular order …
1) Mansour came off as someone who might actually believe that he’s doing a good thing, and Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan came off as … not that.
Mansour: “Imagine if society would basically tackle a lot of our big questions by thinking more.”
Coplan: “If I don’t go and invent that or realize that vision, it probably won’t happen.”
No wonder these two hate each other.
Mansour — again, to the normie watcher — looks and acts like the TA in your freshman mandatory biology class who is willing to sit down and help you through the Punnett Square as many times as it takes.
Coplan looks and acts like the senior frat boy who’s in the class despite his dad’s best efforts to get the dean to waive the science requirement.
Unfair? Of course. But that’s the vibe.
2) Rose-Berman, who I have spoken with many times, both in his role as a gambler and as a let’s-pump-the-brakes-on-this-gambling-thing-a-bit guy with the American Institute for Boys and Men, probably deserves his own doc. He was measured, told both sides of the story, and undoubtedly gave Capri Sun sales a boost. (It’s a quality drink. Related: Has anyone in the history of the world ever sipped a Capri Sun? Impossible. You just squeeze that juice down your gullet as fast as you can like you were wandering the desert with Moses and came across a Capri Sun rock.)
Also: He looks like he’s 12. (That was my wife.) (Don’t worry, Isaac, the babyface will be a lifetime win. Massive +EV.)
3) I thought it very — very, very, very, very — smart and clever by the producers to not highlight someone who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars playing around in prediction markets and instead showed the “other” side by way of the 19-year-old, pizza-eating, no-rent-paying Daniel James, who is down, based on what we were told, about $1,800.
Now, clearly, being down $1,800 is not great, and probably worse when you’re 19, but it’s not (well, probably not) life-destroying.
What the doc showed the public here was not someone who ruined their life with gambling, but instead showed someone who played, lost, will probably play again, and will probably lose again.
The doc didn’t show the result of a landslide; it showed the first few pebbles taking a tumble down the hill.
In short: It kept it real. Quite confident there are a lot more $1,800 losers in the prediction market space than there are $1.8 million losers, and it’s a lot easier to connect with someone like James than it is someone who has clearly lost their ability to make good decisions.
4) I see your man cave out back, Dustin Gouker. I have one as well! We should trade notes.
5) I really thought the doc was even-handed. It didn’t make judgments, it just laid out the facts. (Again, before the angry emails start, this was a 35-minute peek at the industry. Obviously, it didn’t hit everything.)
But …
But it wasn’t so even-handed when it came to the Trump stuff. It definitely insinuated that the president and his son Don Jr. are, at minimum, putting their thumbs on the scale to clear the way for prediction markets to do whatever they want.
The intro into the CFTC honcho Michael Selig stuff — with shots of an encased “Make America Great Again” hat among other Trump paraphernalia, along with his saying “we’re not dealing with any members of the president’s family when it comes to policy, we don’t engage with the president’s family on these types of issues” — reads as “Oh, absolutely this is a Trump thing, duh.”
Blink twice, Selig.
And … there you have it.
Thirty-five minutes, in and out. My take, the normie take, and no airtime for sex cults.
Worth noting: My wife fell asleep before it was over.
