You could have won money off what Trump said in Eastern NC Friday night
When President Donald Trump spoke in Rocky Mount on Friday night, there were people paying attention to every word he said. Not necessarily to these words’ significance, but literally to whether or not the president uttered them.
If Trump mentioned “water,” “Somalia,” “ICE,” “inflation,” “Biden,” or other select topics, individuals would make or lose money through one of the growing number of online prediction market platforms. The trading volume on this one Eastern North Carolina speech — on only one platform — exceeded $1.1 million.
Unlike traditional gambling, prediction markets don’t facilitate bets against “the house,” but instead connect people to enter future contracts with each other. Contract values fluctuate leading up to, and of course after, the events. And topics go far beyond sports.
There are now predictions for elections, the Oscars, measles outbreaks, the weather, where Stephen Colbert will work next year, and much more. CNBC this year named North Carolina as its “Top State for Business” — people are putting money on whether the Tar Heel State repeats in 2026. Another market asks if UNC football coach Bill Belichick and his girlfriend Jordon Hudson will marry next year.
Dollars have previously poured into the probabilities of hurricanes hitting Hatteras Island and Wilmington. But the subject can be as quotidian as the high temperature in Philadelphia tomorrow. The public can suggest new trading markets, too.
Kalshi and Polymarket, the two biggest U.S. prediction market platforms, have seen their values soar, with Kalshi this month announcing it had raised $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation. The sports betting operator DraftKings this week launched its prediction market site, and FanDuel unveiled its platform last month. Polymarket only recently returned to the United States after being blocked for years by the federal government.
“To me, the coolest thing about these markets is not the opportunity to bet,” said Koleman Strumpf, an economist at Wake Forest University “It’s the opportunity for me to consume or learn from the information of a lot of very smart people on this incredible range of topics.”
Strumpf says political predictive markets can be used as a hedge: someone betting for a candidate they believe will hurt their economic interests in order to recoup some of the anticipated losses. He also welcomes the platforms’ probabilities as unadulterated public sentiments freer from media and political spin. “Sometimes the markets help tell me something that can be more grounded in data,” he said.
Who should regulate predictive markets?
Yet for many non-economists, the objective is to win. While trading futures contracts dates back centuries, online prediction markets are a very recent phenomenon. The launching point, Strumpf says, came ahead of the 2024 election, when a federal appeals court ordered the government to allow Kalshi’s election trading market. By early November, the platform had seen more than $12 million in trade volume on whether Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris would carry North Carolina, with Kalshi collecting transaction fees.
Oversight has been controversial. North Carolina legalized mobile sports betting in 2023, but elsewhere, futures trading has been a workaround to state gambling rules. There are also ethical concerns, both around outcome manipulation and trivializing the outcomes of wars, deportations and other serious events with mobile wagers.
Unlike sports betting, which is managed state-to-state, the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulates prediction market platforms as designated contract makers, not gambling operators. This week, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase sued Connecticut, Michigan and Illinois for applying their own gambling laws to prediction markets, arguing that is solely the CFTC’s role.
The Biden administration had been an obstacle to the predictive market sector, barring Polymarket and holding up Kalshi from offering election trades. Under Trump, the sector has found more favorable allies. In January, Kalshi named Donald Trump Jr. a strategic adviser.
Some warn this emerging sector requires more scrutiny. During an event in August, outgoing CFTC Commissioner Kristin Johnson, a Biden appointee, told the audience “we have too few guardrails and too little visibility into the prediction market landscape.”
North Carolina-related questions you can currently bet on Kalshi or Polymarket
- Who will win the 2026 Senate race in North Carolina?
- Which party will win the House race for redrawn NC-1?
- Will Duke University men’s basketball beat Texas Tech on Saturday?
- When will Outer Banks Season 5 be released?
- Who will be CNBC’s number 1 U.S. State for Business next year?
- Which states will Donald Trump visit in 2026?
- Will North Carolina-born country star Luke Combs release a new album in 2025?
- Will Bill Belichick and Jordan Hudson be married before 2027?
- What will the announcers say during the Tampa Bay at Carolina pro football game?
This story was originally published December 20, 2025 at 7:00 AM with the headline "You could have won money off what Trump said in Eastern NC Friday night."
