The MIT Grad Whose Prediction Market Can Reveal What Netflix Show Will Be #1
Tarek Mansour's Kalshi foretold Trump's election. Now his site's users are betting on everything from Bob Iger's exit day to Oscar odds for 'The Brutalist' as a new data set for entertainment emerges
Matthew Frank previously covered Gen Z’s digital war with Hollywood, the YouTuber caught in the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni saga and the online gamblers betting on your movie. This Q&A is a follow-up to the gambling story.
“Entertainment markets are here,” Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns told me last summer, and he added, they’re “gonna get bigger.”
In less than five months since I reported on the emergence of entertainment prediction markets where people can gamble on everything from Rotten Tomatoes scores to movie release dates, Burns’ prognostication has become prophecy. (He should have bet on it!)
On Kalshi, the event-trading site that’s New York-based and CFTC approved, Rotten Tomatoes betting has exploded in popularity. In September, Kalshi users were trading anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000 on particular movies. These days, the RT markets regularly flirt with $1 million in trading volume, with major releases garnering about $2 million. Even a dog like Wolf Man saw more than $900,000 in bets, approaching 10 percent of its opening weekend gross.
After the influx of people who bet on the presidential election on Kalshi — the platform handled more than $1 billion in trades, with most users favoring Trump — Hollywood is the startup’s next big bet. “In 2024, we did a lot of politics,” says Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour. “The entertainment category could use a lot of juice this year, and we’re pretty committed to it. We’re gonna be pushing them pretty aggressively for 2025.”
Whereas there were a few pop culture markets in September, now you can trade on everything from whether Disney CEO Bob Iger will step down this year to what will top Netflix’s weekly movies and TV charts to, yes, the winners of the Grammys, BAFTAs and the Oscars. Traders are suggesting new markets for Kalshi to add all the time.
For the uninitiated, Kalshi lets people trade event outcomes as one would a stock. It’s the exchange (rather than the casino, as in the case of a betting site like DraftKings), taking a transaction fee on every trade. Mansour, who’s based in New York, has said his goal is to build the New York Stock Exchange for events — and Hollywood is a big part of his plans. The company has around 50 employees and backing from such financial heavyweights as Sequoia Capital, Charles Schwab and Henry Kravis.
“There’s always been a home for people that are interested in tech and companies and finance and the stock market, and there’s been a home for people that are interested in sports and the sports betting market,” Mansour, 28, tells me when he and I speak on Jan. 15. “I don’t think there’s been quite a home for people who are really deeply fanatical about movies. There is now.”
Back in 2010, box office futures became illegal in the U.S. after the MPAA successfully lobbied Congress. (It was tacked onto a bill prohibiting the trading of onion futures.) Hollywood was afraid of gamifying its art and wanted to prevent people wagering on the success or failure of its projects.
Fifteen years later, prediction markets — known for their focus on politics — have once again turned their attention towards entertainment — and there appears to be no stopping it this time.
Mansour, an MIT grad who was born in California, grew up in Lebanon and did brief stints at Goldman Sachs, Palantir and Citadel before cofounding Kalshi with fellow MIT grad Luana Lopes Lara in 2019, has never given an interview about his platform’s entertainment markets until now. In this interview, you’ll learn:
Why Mansour believes prediction markets can make Hollywood smarter about its business
Whom he spoke to in Hollywood before launching all these entertainment markets
How these markets can help the industry move faster
Whether he’s going to try to get the ban on box office betting overturned
The reason he’s not concerned about alienating the industry
How these markets will ultimately work with Hollywood tracking services
Why he believes Oscar betting markets will transform awards season