In a TikTok ad for prediction market platform Kalshi, a young woman appears to place a bet as her friends anxiously look over her shoulder.
“I was about to be unable to pay my rent, but I got two years of rent through Kalshi’s predictions. It’s amazing!” reads the social media ad’s text overlay, which is an exhibit in a class action lawsuit against the company.
It is one example of how companies like Kalshi and fellow prediction platform Polymarket, where people trade on the outcomes of real-world events, have set their sights not only on young people but especially on younger women.
Sports betting remains the most lucrative stream of revenue for prediction markets, their core base typically being younger men. A recent survey found that 26 percent of young men reported using at least one sports betting platform, including prediction markets, in the last six months.
But now, to appeal to a wider demographic, the sites are branching out and offering “yes” or “no” bets on everything from who will be a bridesmaid at Taylor Swift’s wedding to which stars will appear on the Call Her Daddy podcast this year.
For Kalshi, it appears to be paying off, with women now making up 26 percent of users, a doubling from 13 percent just 10 months ago, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“Prediction markets are really kind of zoning in and targeting that group through pop culture,” Brian Pempus, the founder and editor of GamblingHarm.org, told The Independent. “They need advertising behind them to really hit that demographic that they want.”
Prediction markets have been surging in popularity in the U.S. since the 2024 election, when trading on the markets showed Donald Trump edging out Kamala Harris, even when most polling did not.
“They've really taken off since Donald Trump took office for a second term, because he basically allowed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to turn a blind eye to sports betting through these prediction markets,” Pempus said.
But the tide appears to be turning as lawmakers have started to clamp down on the sites. Just this week, a group of bipartisan senators introduced legislation that would ban sports betting on prediction market sites. The sites also raised raised eyebrows when people made bets on the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Still, despite fierce backlash and years of court battles, the companies are now estimated to be worth $20 billion each. Donald Trump. Jr is an adviser to both industry leaders, Polymarket and Kalshi. And the president’s Truth Social is set to launch its own prediction market later this year.
At the end of last year, online communities that appeared to be tied to Kalshi and Polymarket launched on X in an apparent effort to attract younger women to the wagering sites.
The @Polybaddies account launched on X in September and has a yellow verification badge that signals its official ties to the parent company, while Kalshi followed suit a month later with @Kalshigirls, though the account does not have a verified badge. It is run by an influencer whom Kalshi has paid to promote the platform, according to the WSJ, which first reported on the account.
The @Polybaddies feed consists largely of reposts from Gen Z influencers promoting the site, where they shared selfies in Polymarket t-shirts and baseball caps. Some boasted about how much they had won on a bet.
Over on @Kalshigirls, the profile’s pinned post is a tongue-in-cheek “Kalshi Girls Starter Pack,” which includes an iced-matcha beverage (a Gen Z staple), a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet, text messages about being late for brunch due to “making trades,” and a Kalshi-branded hoodie.
It may appear fun and light-hearted, but critics of prediction markets in the gambling addiction sphere say the tactics are harmful.
‘I don't consider prediction markets gambling’
Debate is currently raging as to whether prediction markets constitute gambling or if they are the same as investing.
Kalshi and Polymarket’s CEOs have fiercely denied that prediction markets are the same as gambling, though the public doesn’t agree, according to a recent poll that found 61 percent of Americans view them as closer to gambling than investing.
Both companies maintain that they should only have to answer to the federal regulator and consider themselves a financial marketplace, rather than a gambling operation.
Neither Kalshi nor Polymarket responded to questions from The Independent for this article.
“They’ve been really aggressive on social media trying to create these online communities of young women,” Pempus, the former managing editor of sports betting at Forbes, said of prediction markets.
“The fact that they're advertising the product as strategy, trading and investing, and not being honest about the gambling part of it, can get a lot of young women in trouble, potentially with addiction to these products.”
New York-based tech entrepreneur and influencer Evelyn Parker doesn’t agree.
“I don't consider prediction markets gambling,” said the 25-year-old, who is one of a growing number of young women encouraging the demographic to join the prediction market hype.
Parker, who is about to launch her own prediction market called Vyral, has worked with Polymarket as an ambassador and posts content about the platform on her social media accounts, though she wouldn’t disclose whether the company pays her for the posts.
She said that she wants to teach women how to be successful and thrive on the sites.
“I want to bring more women to prediction markets because I want to show them, look, we have the edge,” Parker said. “Every single day we consume fashion, we consume celebrities, we consume all the viral trends, we consume social media.”
Using that knowledge to bet on markets that are not typically male-dominated can be empowering and even lucrative for women, she said.
“Why couldn't you use this as a side job or a full-time job to trade on something that you're really good at?” Parker mused.
She is also in awe of Kalshi’s 29-year-old co-founder, Luana Lopes Lara, who has become the youngest self-made female billionaire. “She's an ex-ballerina, and so am I,” Parker said. “So I definitely know where the discipline comes from. It's definitely inspiring.”
One of Parker’s most successful bets on a prediction market saw her net nearly $1,000 in 15 minutes after she correctly predicted that a cryptocurrency’s value was going to increase.
“I have made quite a lot of money on that,” she told The Independent, but cautioned that she won because tech is her specialist subject.
“I don’t like to suggest it to everybody,” she advised of the cryptocurrency bets. “You need your education and you need your research.”
She maintains that she uses her platform to “educate” women about how prediction markets operate, adding that it was important that influencers are “careful” in how they promote the sites. Users should do their research instead of “blindly” making bets in areas they know nothing about, Parker said.
“Prediction markets are good and if you promote them, you [need to] promote them with the fact that you need your education and you need your research to use them,” she said. “Otherwise, you know, it's just Juul,” Parker said, referring to the scandal that hit the vaping company for contributing to the rise in teen vaping.
“If I lose money, I'll immediately stop,” she added.
‘Wolf in sheep’s clothing’
For others, this mentality could become a slippery slope, warned Kitty Martz, who is “especially worried” about prediction markets targeting women.
In recovery from gambling addiction herself, Martz, the executive director of Voices of Problem Gambling Recovery based in Portland, Oregon, and has been monitoring the rise of prediction markets for the last few years.
“I think there’s going to be an absolute epidemic,” she said.
Martz understands the notion that women may feel empowered when they win their first contract on a prediction market, but warned that the winning streak won’t last.
“The first time someone has knowledge of something and successfully places that prediction market contract, and it matures and it pays out...that's going to feel incredibly empowering,” Martz said. “But it's going to average over time and ‘the house always wins’ is going to hold true.”
“It's kind of a wolf in sheep’s clothing to have early success and be empowered by it, because that's when we feel — like many of us that have gambling histories —’ hey, I should quit my day job and do this for a living. I should become a day trader,’” she added.
Martz worries about the targeting of Gen Z and young Millenials because of the stage they’re at in life.
“They’re trying to have some equity in getting into the workforce, [buying] homes and paying off tuition,” she said. “So women have these very specific concerns, and what the prediction markets’ strategy seems to be is to convert that concern into contracts.”
“There needs to be actual, robust warnings that the more you do it, the more you're going to lose,” she added.
Pempus agrees and thinks prediction markets should provide a gambling hotline number on the apps and in their advertising as “a bare minimum.”
“First and foremost, you have to acknowledge that it's gambling,” he said. “There should be some sort of uniform guardrails for advertising not to appeal to minors or not to aggressively promote gambling as a way to earn money.”
Kalshi is currently embroiled in a string of lawsuits in states that have accused the company of operating an illegal gambling business.
Arizona recently became the first state to file criminal charges against Kalshi, which the prediction market’s spokesperson dismissed as “meritless.”
Kalshi is facing legal action from at least nine other states. In Nevada and Massachusetts, judges issued early rulings in favor of states looking to ban Kalshi and Polymarket from offering sports betting in their states, the Associated Press reports. But the companies have had favorable rulings in New Jersey and Tennessee.
“I don't want to use the word ‘abolished,’ but I do think states have a good argument that online sport is a state-level issue,” said Pempus. “And prediction markets, if they want to offer sports betting, need to get a license from a state and be subject to state-level regulation alongside other operators.”
Despite the slew of legal battles and pushback, with the backing of the Trump administration, prediction markets are booming.
And for the people like Parker who use them regularly, even to consume news, they’re not going away any time soon.
“I think that prediction markets are going to be the new stock exchange,” she forecast.
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