Prediction markets are now used for hedging...the cost of free beers!

BOOM. It’s Friday.

June officially arrived this week, and we're off to a strong start.

Here in London, we somehow managed to survive an entire May without seeing much rain. In fact, the prediction market on London precipitation in May resolved at under 5mm. A rare moment where both meteorologists and prediction market traders got to feel clever at the same time.

We're also entering what Europeans lovingly call silly season. That's the period where the sporting calendar is dominated by football in America and American sports in America. A magical time of year when every sporting event is interrupted every seven minutes to sell you weight-loss drugs, pickup trucks, and nachos the size of a small family hatchback.

The World Cup is getting closer, and I'll be putting together a dedicated edition this weekend. There are already some fascinating markets forming around squad announcements, host nation performance, and a few geopolitical angles that nobody at FIFA's marketing department wants to think about 🇮🇷.

Meanwhile, New York is dreaming of a very different summer.

A bar has promised customers FREE BEERS(!) if the Knicks win the NBA Championship.

Which sounds generous until you remember that beer is literally the thing bars sell.

It's a bit like Ferrari promising free cars if they win Formula 1.

Fortunately, the owners weren't completely insane. They used prediction markets to hedge the risk. By buying Knicks contracts, they created a financial offset. If the Knicks win, the bar gets hit with a tsunami of thirsty customers, but the prediction market payout helps cover the cost.

It's one of the cleanest real-world examples of prediction markets being used as an actual risk-management tool rather than internet gambling.

And it got me thinking:

And perhaps more interestingly...

Which ones absolutely should not be hedged, but probably will be anyway? Could we soon be seeing:

Only the imagination of business owners is the limit… and liquidity… as always.

In other news…

The most interesting thing about Robinhood's prediction market launch isn't the reviews.

It's that nobody is reviewing prediction markets anymore.

They're reviewing a product feature.

That's a huge shift.

For years, prediction markets lived in a strange corner of the internet populated by crypto traders, election obsessives, and people who somehow knew the deputy mayor of a Latvian town.

Now they're sitting inside one of America's largest retail brokerage apps next to stocks, ETFs, and crypto.

The reviews themselves are predictable. Casual users love the onboarding. Serious traders complain it's too shallow. Everyone agrees Kalshi and Polymarket still offer a deeper experience.

But that's missing the point.

Robinhood isn't trying to beat Kalshi.

Robinhood is trying to stop 25 million users from opening a Kalshi account.

The bigger question is whether this helps or hurts prediction markets.

Bull case: millions of new users enter the ecosystem.

Bear case: prediction markets become another entertainment product sitting between meme stocks and sports betting.

My guess?

The bull case wins.

Every financial product starts simple. Then users get curious. Then they want more.

Robinhood won't create prediction market experts.

It will create future Kalshi and Polymarket customers.

One of the more interesting developments in prediction markets this year has flown almost completely under the radar.

In April, FIFA announced ADI Predictstreet as its official prediction market partner for the 2026 World Cup. On paper, it's a huge deal. ADI holds Gibraltar's first dedicated prediction market licence, is backed by Abu Dhabi capital, and is building on its own blockchain infrastructure through the $ADI token.

In theory, this could become Europe's first serious regulated prediction market platform at a time when Polymarket faces regulatory challenges across much of the continent.

I'm genuinely rooting for it.

A regulated European prediction market with FIFA distribution could be a massive breakthrough for the industry.

But the next few weeks are where the real work begins.

Partnerships, licences, and token valuations are the easy part.

Liquidity is the hard part.

Right now, the FIFA badge looks world-class. The actual trading activity does not.

That doesn't mean the project has failed. Far from it. Prediction markets are notoriously difficult to bootstrap because nobody wants to trade where nobody else is trading.

But with the World Cup a week away, this is the moment.

If users show up, liquidity appears, and markets function smoothly, ADI could emerge as the first serious regulated European competitor in the space.

If not, people will conclude that the FIFA partnership was primarily a token story rather than a prediction market story.

I'll be watching closely.

Because if this works, it's huge for prediction markets.

And if it doesn't, it'll be another reminder that getting the licence is easy compared to getting the traders.

One of the biggest new markets this week asks whether SpaceX will IPO above a $1.8 trillion valuation.

The market currently says: 90% Yes.

Which means traders are effectively saying there is almost no scenario where the most hyped company on earth disappoints.

That may be true.

But it's also exactly the kind of setup that attracts me.

Prediction markets are one of the cheapest ways to short narratives.

And right now there are two narratives the market seems completely drunk on:

SpaceX sits right in the middle of both.

Don't get me wrong. It's an incredible company.

But prediction markets aren't about asking whether something is great.

They're about asking whether expectations have become detached from reality.

At $1.8 trillion, you're not betting on rockets anymore.

You're betting on perfection.

The funny thing is that even a successful IPO could disappoint prediction traders if the valuation comes in slightly below the number everyone has convinced themselves is inevitable.

The market may be right.

Elon has made a career out of making skeptics look stupid.

But when I see 90% certainty attached to almost anything involving public markets, my instinct isn't to buy.

SpaceX might be incredible. Or it might blow up - like BlueOrigin… It's to start looking for the cheapest way to bet against the crowd.

You can STILL get your hands on the very free Priced In beginners guide to Prediction Markets here

Guess who’s back! The prediction market for Presidential candidates for 2028 might have just gotten it’s black horse. And black sheep…