Kalshi and Polymarket Rewrite the Super Bowl Playbook for Pro Gamblers
The sudden rise of prediction markets has sophisticated bettors scrambling to adjust their strategies.
Blackbriar Technologies’ John Shilling at his home office outside Charleston, South Carolina.
Photographer: Robin Maaya for Bloomberg BusinessweekDuring his more than 15 years as a professional sports gambler, Rufus Peabody has built up an elaborate system of software tools and surrogate bettors that allow him to spot favorable odds offered by bookmakers of every variety and quickly put down millions of dollars on golf, football, basketball and other sports.
Now all that is in flux. Almost overnight, prediction markets such as Kalshi Inc. have begun snapping up large amounts of money that would likely otherwise have ended up on traditional gambling forums. Sophisticated gamblers like Peabody, often referred to either as sharps or sharks, are adjusting their operations accordingly. “It really feels like everything’s prediction markets, prediction markets, prediction markets,” says Peabody, who began trading heavily on Kalshi in September. “Maybe not for the average recreational bettor, but certainly in the sharp community.”