How about $100 on Britney to win?
Gamblers can add news events to their wagering options thanks to a Soho start-up that lets users bet on outcomes such as whether Britney Spears can free herself from her father’s control.
Polymarket offers odds on a wide array of developments, including COVID-19 vaccination rates, the next host of “Jeopardy” and who will win the 2024 presidential election.
In Spears’ case, it allows you to bet yes or no to the pop star’s father James Parnell Spears quitting or getting the boot as her conservator by Oct. 1.
Backing the popstar turns out to be a longshot: Polymarket gives her just a 28 percent chance of success by that date.
Still, if your $100 bet comes through, you’d win about $257.
If instead you put your money on James and he prevailed, that same $100 wager would win about $38.
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan told The Post that his company acts as a public barometer for predictions of all kinds, allowing anonymous gamblers — identified only by numbers and letters — to set the market for what might or might not occur across the political, economic and social landscape.
“It actually gives the utmost accurate forecast of the future — by way of letting people bet,” claimed the 23-year-old entrepreneur, whose company launched in 2017 and raised $4 million from venture capitalists last year, according to Pitchbook.
Coplan, a computer science student at NYU who dropped out to start the company, says his service is useful not only to its bettors but also to anyone looking to analyze newsworthy issues. Odds are constantly changing based on user activity, just like on Wall Street, with round-the-clock buying and selling of “shares.”
You can sell your shares at any time, providing the chance to cash in if the market moves in your favor.
Wagering on Polymarket is also like horse racing, sports betting and blackjack — a way to win or lose lots of money fast.
The all-time leader has claimed winnings of $566,080, according to Polymarket Whales, a website that tracks bettors and says the biggest loser dropped $1,093,669. The site has seen overall volume of more than $130 million.
The company is based on cryptocurrencies that are convertible to cash.
To get in on the action, users must buy two of them: USDC, which is pegged to the dollar one-to-one is and used for buying and selling shares; and Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, which is needed to cover the “gas,” a crypto-network fee for transactions.
A FEW MARKETS OF INTEREST:
- If Andrew Cuomo will be governor of New York on Jan. 1, 2022, with yes at $0.24.
- If the U.S. will report a record seven-day high of new COVID-19 cases by Jan. 1, 2022, with yes at $0.19.
- If Joe Biden will be president on Sept. 30, 2021, with yes at $0.97.