Prediction markets aren’t new. Election betting was common until the 1940s, then mysteriously faded away. There was an entire political era when party bosses were expected to conspicuously gamble on their candidates (even if they secretly hedged). And in the 1980s, a few economists designed an election market that beat out election polling 74 percent of the time. Today, we’re running an excerpt from our friends at Throughline, NPR’s excellent history podcast. <a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510333/throughline"target="_blank" >Subscribe right now if you don’t already</a>. And, listen to<a href="https://www.npr.org/2026/05/21/nx-s1-5828906/prediction-markets-are-making-a-150-year-comeback"target="_blank" > their extended version of the episode</a> to hear about the early markets for betting on terrorism and military uses of prediction markets. Support:<ul class="rte2-style-ul" style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;"><li><a href="https://n.pr/3HlREPz"target="_blank" >NPR+</a></li></ul>Read: <ul class="rte2-style-ul" style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;"><li>Our book: <a href="https://lnk.to/i3AukBdD"target="_blank" >Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life</a> </li></ul><ul class="rte2-style-ul" style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;"><li>Our weekly longform <a href="https://n.pr/3zrFvUB"target="_blank" >Planet Money newsletter</a></li><li>Our weekly <a href="https://www.npr.org/newsletter/indicator"target="_blank" >Indicator round-up newsletter</a></li></ul>Follow: <ul class="rte2-style-ul" style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;"><li><a href="https://n.pr/3FqLuws"target="_blank" >Instagram</a></li><li><a href="https://n.pr/3sGZdrq"target="_blank" >TikTok</a></li><li><a href="https://lnk.to/iCVDaW3C"target="_blank" >YouTube</a></li><li><a href="https://n.pr/3h92GwS"target="_blank" >Facebook</a></li></ul>Today's episode was produced for Planet Money by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, edited by Alex Goldmark, and engineered by Maggie Luthar. The original Throughline episode was produced by Rund Abdelfatah, Casey Miner, Cristina Kim, Devin Katayama, Sarah Wyman, Julia Redpath, and Kyana Moghadam.  See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>

Podurama

Home

Trending

Personal

Your Podcasts

New Episodes

My Files

Favourite Episodes

Tags (Folders)

Recently Played

Bookmarks

Followed Playlists

Before Kalshi and Polymarket there was the Iowa Electronic Markets

Planet Money (via Backfeed)

AI Chapters

AI Insights

Reviews