Prediction markets — a scandal hiding in plain sight

Mark Goldberg, founder of Alternative Investments Market Intelligence, says a prediction market is nothing more or less than a wager on Monday Night Football. Whether the subject is an election, an economic report or a celebrity outcome, the structure is identical: two parties take opposite sides of a binary event. One wins. One loses. Nothing is created in the process. Yet these products are now being integrated into the same interfaces where Americans hold their retirement savings. (02/2026)