About this episode
Prediction markets aren’t new. Election betting was common until the 1940s, then mysteriously faded away.<br/><br/>There was an entire political era when party bosses were expected to conspicuously gamble on their candidates (even if they secretly hedged).<br/><br/>And in the 1980s, a few economists designed an election market that beat out election polling 74 percent of the time.<br/><br/>Today, we’re running an excerpt from our friends at <em>Throughline</em>, 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.<br/><br/><em>Support:</em><br><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" ><em>NPR+</em></a></li></ul><br><em>Read: </em><br><ul class="rte2-style-ul" style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;"><li><em>Our book: </em><a href="https://lnk.to/i3AukBdD"target="_blank" ><em>Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life</em></a><em> </em></li></ul><ul class="rte2-style-ul" style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;"><li><em>Our weekly longform </em><a href="https://n.pr/3zrFvUB"target="_blank" ><em>Planet Money newsletter</em></a></li><li><em>Our weekly </em><a href="https://www.npr.org/newsletter/indicator"target="_blank" ><em>Indicator round-up newsletter</em></a></li></ul><br><em>Follow: </em><br><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" ><em>Instagram</em></a></li><li><a href="https://n.pr/3sGZdrq"target="_blank" ><em>TikTok</em></a></li><li><a href="https://lnk.to/iCVDaW3C"target="_blank" ><em>YouTube</em></a></li><li><a href="https://n.pr/3h92GwS"target="_blank" ><em>Facebook</em></a></li></ul><br><em>Today's episode was produced for </em>Planet Money<em> by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, edited by Alex Goldmark, and engineered by Maggie Luthar. The original </em>Throughline<em> episode was produced by Rund Abdelfatah, Casey Miner, Cristina Kim, Devin Katayama, Sarah Wyman, Julia Redpath, and Kyana Moghadam. </em><br/><br/>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.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>