Earlier this year, Thomas Christian Owens decided to try his hand at prediction market trading for the first time. He created a Kalshi account in January. Three months and a $500 deposit later, he started betting.
“It was a little bit of a birthday gift to myself to throw some money in there and just have some fun,” the 29-year-old manufacturing engineer told CBS News.
Owens wasn’t expecting to make a killing. He told CBS News that he wanted a little extra money in his pocket to support himself and some of his family members. He had some early successes, but just over a month after he started trading, the Oklahoma City resident found himself in the red.
Young men like Owens say they are drawn to prediction markets in search of thrills, fast money and in some cases, financial security.
Close to 40% of young men between 18 and 34 use prediction markets, according to an April survey from Navigator Research, a public opinion research organization. On Kalshi, one of the leading prediction markets in the U.S., roughly 3 million of the platform’s 4 million active users are male. Six in 10 of the platform’s total users are between the ages of 18 and 34.
Prediction markets have recently drawn scrutiny for alleged insider trading — with men at the center of several high-profile cases. That includes a Google employee who was accused of allegedly making more than $1.2 million on Polymarket betting on confidential company information. A U.S. special forces soldier was arrested after allegedly betting on the removal from office of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro before news of the U.S. raid was made public. Former Rep. George Santos of New York is also under scrutiny for alleged insider trading on Kalshi.
Experts say it’s not surprising that men are the primary customers of prediction markets, given their propensity for risk.
“Young men tend to express more confidence than women when it comes to financial decisions and taking risks,” said Michael Liersch, a behavioral finance expert and chief planning officer at investment adviser Edelman Financial Engines. “That has to do with a strong belief about being right.”
The thrill of prediction markets
Prediction markets allow users to bet on a wide range of prospective events. To trade on the platforms, users typically place wagers on “yes” and “no” questions called event contracts, which are priced between $0 and $1. A successful wager results in a $1 payout per contract, while an incorrect prediction loses money.
Users can trade on anything from whether the U.S. government will confirm the existence of aliens to which men’s team will win this year’s World Cup. Owens, a basketball fan, mostly trades on sports-related events, including bets on his hometown NBA team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Provided by Thomas Christian Owens
One of his early basketball “combo” bets, which lets users bundle multiple event contracts into a single trade, netted him $456 from a $50 wager — a more than an 800% return. On another combo bet, he accurately predicted the outcome of three pro basketball games, turning $196 into nearly $1,700.
Another popular wager for prediction market users is so-called “mention markets,” which allow users to put money on specific words or phrases that politicians, celebrities and other people will use during events.
That’s how Steven Zhang, a student at the University of California, Los Angeles, first heard about Polymarket. The 20-year-old was studying in the library with a friend in 2024 when he came across a social media ad inviting people to bet on what President Trump would say during a presidential debate. Zhang had seen the ad a few times before. This time, he and his friends decided they wanted some skin in the game.
“I remember we put $20 into Polymarket, in a crypto wallet, and then we made some bets, and we lost it all,” he said.
Provided by Steven Zhang 
Zhang now trades on Kalshi, betting on highly uncertain outcomes such as what TV announcers will say during NBA games and the U.S.-Iran conflict. “I’m starting really small. I think I have like $150 in my account,” he said. “I have the amount of money that I’m comfortable losing.”
CBS News reached out to Kalshi with questions about its male customer base but did not receive a response prior to publication.
For Zhang, the thrill of prediction markets is putting your money where your mouth is.
“Knowing that you could be right or wrong, I think, is part of the game,” he said.
Experts say that part of why men seek out prediction markets can boil down to a simple biological differentiation. Men are more likely to consider speculative assets and are less afraid to lose money than their female counterparts.
“They have maybe less of what economists call an endowment effect, which is when they have a certain amount, they don’t care [if they] lose it all as readily as maybe women do,” David Bieri, an associate professor at Virginia Tech, told CBS News.
When men strike it lucky on prediction markets, they walk away with more than just money: they earn bragging rights, Bieri said.
“There is social status from being seen as successful in these high-prestige markets,” he told CBS News. “Which young man does not want to be the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’?”
A losing game?
When Owens opened a Kalshi account, he said he hoped any winnings would supplement his income and enable him to offer financial support to his family.
“I’m not supporting anybody as a dependent right now, but I have a few family members that are really down on their finances at the moment, so trying to help them out, too,” he said.
Beyond making extra money, men may also turn to prediction markets in search of financial security. In a recent survey, Northwestern Mutual found that 75% of men feel financially behind and think speculative investments, including prediction markets, can help them catch up. That’s compared to 69% of women.
“When people feel behind, sometimes risky choices can look like a shortcut,” John Roberts, chief field officer at Northwestern Mutual, told CBS News in an email, adding that headlines about rising prices and possible Social Security cuts can add to the pressure.
But the reality for most users differs from the expectations that brought them to the site. After a string of losses, Owens’ account balance recently dropped to $1,700 — below the $2,500 he had deposited. Out of caution, he is now keeping his prediction market bets to under $100, he said.
“I had almost $4,600 at one point but squandered that, for sure,” Owens wrote in a text message.
A handful of Kalshi users have made hundreds of millions of dollars. But that’s highly unlikely for the vast majority of users. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis, more than 67% of profits on Polymarket went to 0.1% of accounts.
A Polymarket spokesperson didn’t address a series of questions posed by CBS News for this story, instead responding with a statement saying: “Polymarket is open to eligible adults 18 and older, and we continue to build on our mission to share human-informed knowledge with the world through open, capital-backed markets.”
The average user prediction market has the odds stacked against them, according to Jordan Bender, managing director of gaming equity research at the financial firm Citizens.
Research from Citizens found that the median return on investment for a prediction market user was -8%, meaning they would lose $8 for every $100 spent.
“People shouldn’t expect to walk into betting of any type and walk away a winner,” Bender said.