Kate Knibbs What if you’ve gone twice?
Makena Kelley: Yes, Kate. Yes, Kate.
Kate Knibbs It was a mistake.
Zoë Schiffer: What? The Pentagon Pizza is a joke to the effect that pizzas predict wars.
Makena Kelley: Yeah.
Zoë Schiffer: Oh, my god.
Makena Kelley: The Pentagon had pizza trackers posted. Yes, I did return the second time. Most of it worked. Although some screens were off, I did not see any Bloomberg terminals. It looked like Polymarket created some Bloomberg monitor-style terminals, but there was no $50,000 Bloomberg terminal to be found. On the second evening, I saw a majority of people gawking at the event. However, there were a few who had bet on Polymarket. Kalshi. William said he served in the military but wouldn’t tell me his complete name. He got into this last year for the very first time, by putting, I’m pretty sure, his whole tax return in Oklahoma City sports betting.
Makena Kell, archived audio: You use Kalshi, right?
William, archival audio: You can say that..
Makena Kell, archived audio: What was your first experience with the service?
William, archival audio: When I get my tax refund back.
Makena Kell, archived audio: OK.
William, archival audio: When I first filed my tax return, I thought, “Oh, wow, that was early.” “Oh, sweet. I got my tax return. What am I going to do with it?” Then I thought, “I’m going to just put it on Kalshi.”
Makena Kelley: He claimed that although he makes small wins, he doesn’t make any big ones. We’ve all heard some of these stories. Some people are making outrageous insider bets that make millions of dollar. It sounds like this is just an interested guy playing it just for fun.
Brian Barrett: Kate, what do you see when you see a pop-up like this and Polymarket trying to—is it an attempt to legitimize itself to just a marketing stunt? What do you think about the explosion of growth these companies are experiencing in order to get so many people interested and hooked?
Kate Knibbs This event seems to be a very obvious attempt at wooing journalists in DC. Makena’s comment about the Palantir guys in hoodies is a good example of what we are experiencing right now. This bar was opened the week before, I believe. Palantir, a Palantir partner, is helping Polymarket protect the integrity and quality of its sports market. Palantir will be attempting to catch market manipulators and insider traders in every sport game, which is quite bizarre. When I tried to ask Polymarket about the Iran betting that has been causing a stir, last week I asked them if Palantir had made any other deals. Palantir is only helping with sports. That was utterly bizarre. It shows how Palantir is expanding rapidly, yet doing it in a very ad-hoc manner that makes no sense. Since I was thinking, “If you’re going to get Palantir involved, why wouldn’t you have them do this geopolitical stuff instead of March Madness?” Wow, what a wild time!
