I really haven’t spoken much on the landscape of the industry lately but thought it’d be a good time for a longer form post on my feelings. This is the kind of stuff that really pisses me off. I hate the virtue signaling from those at the top in the Prediction Market space especially when they act like they are the second coming of Christ. This “we don’t make money when people lose” line is the most nauseating piece of marketing in the whole space. It is not a moral high ground. It is a fee model with better lawyers and a prettier deck. You make money when people trade. Most people who trade lose. That is not a sportsbook talking point. That is their own data. They have said it out loud. 70% losers. Same as us. Same as day traders. Same as every other place where retail money meets an uncertain outcome. Call it betting. Call it trading. Call it predicting. Call it an event contract. The customer is still putting money on whether a team covers, whether a candidate wins, whether a number hits. The money is at risk. The outcome is uncertain. That is gambling. The rest is branding. Sportsbooks take the other side and bake a vig into the price. Prediction markets take a cut of the trade and live off the spread. Different plumbing. Same result. Both businesses scale on volume. Volume comes from people who keep coming back. Most of those people are not winning. They love to say the house is not on the other side. Then you look at who is actually filling the book. Market makers. Internal trading arms. Pros who never get limited. Retail is still the other side of a lot of that flow. The platform still gets paid either way. The virtue signaling is not about protecting customers. It is about jurisdiction. Federal wrapper instead of state gaming licenses. Operate in places that told sportsbooks no. Wrap a sports menu in CFTC language and act like you invented a new product. You did not. If 80% of the action is sports and the screen looks like a bet slip, stop pretending you are running the CME. You are running a sportsbook that figured out a different regulatory door. Fine. Compete. Just stop acting like you are above the rest of us. We have never needed customers to lose every ticket to make money. Balanced book + hold still pays the bills. We also do not need a TED Talk about how noble our incentives are. We take action. We post a number. People bet it. That is the job. The disingenuous part is acting like renaming the product changes the customer. It does not. A guy who cannot beat -110 is not going to suddenly beat fees, spreads, and better-informed flow just because you called it a contract instead of a wager. Sell the product. Fight for the regulation you want. But drop the sermon. You are in the same business we are. The sooner that gets said without the moral high ground, the more honest this whole conversation gets.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ I don’t hate that prediction markets are a part of the landscape now. I’m not going to cry over spilt milk or be a baby about it. But what you aren’t going to do is act like Mother f’ing Theresa with your product when you are doing the exact same thing as most everyone else in the G-A-M-B-L-I-N-G space. Ted talk over. Have a nice day.