Customers can wager on everything from whether it will rain in Los Angeles tomorrow to who will in the NBA championship to whether the U.S. and Iran will go to war. The contracts are typically priced between one cent and 99 cents, which roughly translates into what percentage of those customers believe that event will happen. During a confronting interview with the Soberly Speaking Podcast, the 28-year-old, who is one of four brothers, revealed that betting on horses was his ‘poison’ before opening up on how his gambling addiction began. Prediction markets say they offer “event contracts”, tied to events where the payoff structure is binary. Either the event occurs and a payment is made, or it does not and no payment is made.
Dutch regulator threatens Polymarket with €420K weekly fines for unlicensed gambling
Some evidence supports internet-based therapies, although attrition is a significant issue. A continuing, cost-effective system for monitoring gambling consumption and related harms is needed. The most common harms experienced due to another person’s gambling were feeling angry, distressed or hopeless about their gambling, and experiencing greater tension and conflict in their relationships. Reduction of available spending money or savings, loss of sleep and less enjoyment from time spent with people they care about were also commonly reported (Hing et al. 2021). Gambling can harm people’s financial security, health, and broader wellbeing.
Figure 2: Total real gambling expenditure/net losses ($ billion) in Australia, by product, 2001–02 to 2022–23
Bets on the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado winning the 2025 Nobel peace prize spiked shortly before the official announcement, for example, prompting allegations of insider trading. It was later determined that the leak was probably created by scraping already public metadata from the Nobel prize website. In November 2024, the FBI raided the home of Shayne Coplan, the CEO of Polymarket, for allegedly allowing US-based users to bet on the site despite a ban. Polymarket claimed the raid was retaliation for its users betting overwhelmingly that Donald Trump would win the election.
This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. Australians lose $32 billion on legal forms of gambling each year, more per capita than anywhere in the world. Shayne Rodgers has not gambled for more than a decade, but he said he now worries about his son’s exposure to gambling. He realised he needed to get help when he was in his late 20s and found it was affecting his day-to-day life, such as being unable to afford fuel for his car. “So it starts turning into a behavioural addiction paradigm, or a genuine way to make money.”
Trump administration backs Kalshi, Polymarket as states move to ban prediction markets
And through feedback loops, these markets could (and probably have) influenced the very events they claim to predict. The commercialization of gambling in many countries – which also drives normalization – is increasing the incidence of gambling harm. Sponsorship or other association with popular sporting leagues, and the colocation of gambling products in social settings, are key mechanisms. Aggressive promotion of gambling in popular and social media also increases gambling activity.
And they are not restricted to certain areas, like sports betting. Gambling, at least in the conventional sense, is closely scrutinized – and, in some cases, significantly limited – by regulators. In Las Vegas, for example, you must be 21 to place a bet in a casino. Legalized sports betting platforms remain banned in some states, such as California and Texas, and are also prevented from serving users under the age of 21 jokaviproom online casino in many of the states where they are allowed. Multisectoral action to reduce gambling harm is required to reduce the potential for gambling to impede progress on SDGs.