This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Platforms like Kalshi and Poly Market, there are a few others predicted, I was using that for a while. These platforms offer the ability to bet on political events, including presidential elections, midterms, cabinet appointments, who's in, who's out, all that Washington DC gossip, and not just for the United States, but worldwide as well. I've been doing this a bit myself. Initially out of research for my upcoming book, I was writing about prediction markets and all the different ways that the economy has changed in recent years. And so at first I was doing it for research and then just because I thought it was fun.
So a lot of people are doing this in different ways, betting on political events and betting on other events. Sometimes you can bet on, well, I was gonna say sports, but that's been around for a while. Basically all kinds of things, celebrity dating, celebrity breakups, and so on. So today's caller wants to know more about this. What are some tips for coming out ahead when using one of these platforms?
Good question. We'll talk about it in just 30 seconds. Stay tuned. [Music]
Hi there. This is Mitch from To Willa City.
I've been enjoying the show and all the fun ideas. Recently I've been researching platforms like Call She and Poly Market, where anyone can bet on specific outcomes like political elections. It's fun and interesting. I think you said something once about how you were using PredictIt. Have you learned anything from that experiment?
And do you think this is a viable side hustle for the right person? - All right, this is fun. So let's see, our listener mentioned PredictIt. PredictIt is where I had just the most personal experience. They may or may not be out of business, either at the moment or soon.
They've been operating for a number of years, but the U.S. government, a few months ago, sent it a letter, sent PredictIt a letter, saying that they had to shut down. So PredictIt is fighting it, but the outcome kind of remains to be seen. So if PredictIt is not available, there are others, including Call She, Poly Market, as mentioned, Call She is K-A-L-S-H-I. If you just search for that, or if you search Poly Market, you search Prediction Markets, Betting Markets, you can bet on all sorts of things.
If you click on Markets, you can bet on President Biden's approval rating. Is it going to be higher or lower next week? And other people are obviously taking bets both ways. You can bet on the best new artist at the Grammys, the best picture at the Oscars. You can bet on how much U.S. GDP growth is going to be.
Will it be 2.5% and higher? Will it be less than that? On and on and on, so many different options. So some of the tips for betting are going to be the same as for sports betting or other betting, like be patient. Don't rush into placing bets, take your time.
Diversify your bets. Don't put all your money on one event or outcome, spread it out over multiple events, and be aware of the fees. So make sure you understand the fees before using the platform, just like anything else, these platforms charge fees to operate. And of course, have a budget in mind. How much do you want to bet in this experiment?
$100, $500, maybe more, but hopefully whatever the number is, you have some number in mind. Now, more specifically to political betting, 'cause that's what I was kind of doing for a few months, I've noticed that swings are really common. So for example, in the midterms, for months, I think for more than a year before the midterms, you could bet, are the Democrats going to win the midterms? Are the Republicans? And you could also bet on the House and the Senates.
There's multiple outcomes there. And I noticed that from week to week with the different news cycle things happening, for a while, one party would be ahead and then it would go back to the other party. And so it's possible to profit by betting on those swings. You just take a position one way or another, often a contrarian position, the opposite of what most people are saying. And then with enough time, often it will go the other way, as I said, and so then you take your profit and then you can do it again.
So that was one thing that I thought was interesting. You don't make a ton of money doing it, right? Because you're just maybe like a few pennies per share, and of course you can buy more shares. You don't make a ton of money doing it, but it's interesting for sure. And in the future, I think the reason why it's important to learn about this is because in the future, you'll be able to bet on anything anytime.
Like this isn't totally the case right now. There's still some issues with these platforms, with regulation, like with predict it being shut down, and liquidity, there needs to be enough people betting enough money in any particular market to make it work, but I think this is coming. So if you learn about it now, you're gonna be ahead of the game when it fully arrives. Definitely something that can be fun and profitable for the right person. All right, that's my take on that.
As I said, I got a book about this coming out later, not a book all about political betting, but that's one chapter in it. It's called "Ganzo Capitalism," comes out in August. And for now, if you have a question about making money, about your side hustle, about business ideas, whatever it is, sidehustleschool.com/questions, we'll continue to feature them. A new episode every day. It's all completely free.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
