The rise of politicized prediction markets has struck some as almost thematically fitting for the second term of President Donald Trump. The fusion of gambling and politics offered by apps like Kalshi and Polymarket seems timely in an era in which a failed casino mogul is at the head of a government riddled with accusations of insider trading. But according to the Hill contributor Max Burns, Trump’s efforts to turn America into “the world’s largest casino” aren’t going to pay off for anyone.
“The gambling business is familiar territory for Trump, who failed at running four of his own casino properties in the 1990s and 2000s,” writes Burns. “The Trumps also have their fingers in the booming prediction market industry: Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm 1789 Capital is a major investor in Kalshi competitor Polymarket, which didn’t dissuade Kalshi from naming Trump Jr. as a strategic adviser in January 2025. Both firms clearly see proximity to the first family as a winning bet. Embraced by a president who sees prediction markets as the nation’s next big industry and abetted by cash-strapped states hungry to generate additional tax revenue, our elected leaders are hard at work turning America into the world’s largest casino floor.”
As a result, says Burns, the country has become a place where everything the government does offers a potential profit incentive, and where officials are increasingly more interested in their own prediction market payouts than they are in public service or questions of right and wrong.
Burns notes that there have already been several high-profile examples. One soldier is set to stand trial later this year after raking in $400,000 off classified information relating to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and three congressional candidates have been fined for betting on their own elections. Despite such scandals and obvious conflicts of interest, the White House has declined to formally ban staff from using privileged information in prediction markets, and several officials have ended up securing lucrative roles at Kalshi and related businesses.
According to Burns, this sort of insider grift is just the most immediate problem posed by the situation. Another worry the U.S. should have moving forward, he asserts, involves questions regarding “what that kind of behavior does to the nation’s cultural psyche.”
“Young Americans are constantly bombarded by social media influencers and hidden algorithms that experts warn are creating deeply unhealthy views about wealth and happiness,” writes Burns. “Forget beauty or popularity — the new metric of success for young people is ‘performance wealth’ and its demand for constant comparison with their peers.”
According to Burns, “It’s no coincidence that the rise in performance wealth culture has coincided with a collapse in the values that once offered cultural unity and personal fulfillment. Fewer Americans than ever now say ideals like patriotism, religion and community involvement are ‘very important’ to them, according to a 2023 Wall Street Journal/NORC survey. Between 2019 and 2023, only one value rose in importance for Americans: money.”
And under Trump, increasingly, “how young people get that wealth becomes irrelevant. Grifting and fraud become as viable a pathway to riches as honest work — the only thing that matters is not getting caught. In that reality, Trump’s checkered history of blending his government position with his personal enrichment becomes not only understandable but practically common sense. After all, only an idiot would leave money on the table.”
With all this in mind, Burns concludes with grim questions about the future.
“It’s worth asking if this is the kind of world we really want to live in,” he writes. “Does an America dominated by unregulated prediction markets, widespread gambling and get-rich-at-any-cost thinking serve anyone except the few who either run the gambling platforms or have access to the insider information required to win? More fundamentally, what becomes of a culture where our young people are so fixated on amassing wealth that they no longer feel any social obligation to each other, or to the public? What kind of leaders and public servants will they become?”
