It’s the summer of sports! First the Knicks, then the World Cup, and now we’re just weeks away from what promises to be a Taylor Swift–size, Super Bowl–esque, maybe Madison Square Garden–set spectacle: her wedding to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who is, thanks to Swift, probably the only football player many women can name besides Tom Brady (thanks to Gisele).
Swift has done more than teach a generation of fans about football. She may now be introducing them to sports betting. Prediction markets—which have exploded in popularity over the past few years, turning companies like Kalshi and Polymarket into billion-dollar businesses—have become the latest venue for wagering on all things Swift-Kelce. Where will the wedding take place? Who will the bridesmaids be? How many celebrity guests will attend?
It’s a sign of just how far prediction markets have traveled. What began as a way to forecast elections, economic data, and geopolitical events has become a place where traders speculate on the details of a pop star’s wedding. After driving NFL ratings, merchandise sales, and television viewership, Swift now appears to be moving markets too.
The betting frenzy arrives at a particularly awkward moment for the industry, just as The New York Times reports on Meta’s foray into the prediction-market space and The Wall Street Journal publishes a scathing investigation into Polymarket’s business practices. I’m Vanity Fair staff writer Clara Molot, filling in for Julia Black. You can read my story below.
Mentioned in this issue: Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, Selena Gomez, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Gracie Abrams, Blake Lively, Mark Zuckerberg, Luca Guadagnino, A24, Google, SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, Apple, Patrick Mahomes, Gigi Hadid, Alan Greenspan, and more…
