Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Matt, We're talking about
Speaker 1: it a little earlier that prediction market call She is
Speaker 1: partnering with Elon Musk's XAI to bring rock to prediction markets.
Speaker 1: According to a post by x AI, we're going to
Speaker 1: bring in call She CEO Trek Montsur to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit more about this change you're seeing in prediction markets. Tara,
Speaker 1: good to see again. I'm wondering what AI is going
Speaker 1: to do to prediction markets moving forward, particularly because you've
Speaker 1: seen them taken off so much since the election and
Speaker 1: then some.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well thanks for having me. Really excited to be here. Well,
Speaker 2: I think it is one of the things that may
Speaker 2: be the only thing that's going fast on the prediction
Speaker 2: markets today. So you know, we're obviously incorporated my ways.
Speaker 2: As you see, we've done two, i would say, two
Speaker 2: of the leading commercials that were sort of AI first
Speaker 2: commercials over the last few months. You may have seen
Speaker 2: or two of them, and I have seen sort of
Speaker 2: an explosion of the use of AI cross marketing after
Speaker 2: the Surffirt Calchhieri commercial. So we're very excited about, you know,
Speaker 2: the use of the technology, what it could be into
Speaker 2: marketing teams and how it could make sort of teams
Speaker 2: more efficient across the board. Obviously, the prediction markets AI
Speaker 2: intersects could be very interesting going forward in the future.
Speaker 1: Prediction markets have certainly been interesting for retail investors who
Speaker 1: are looking to put their money based on where their
Speaker 1: expectations are. But I'm also hearing more and more from
Speaker 1: Wall Street as well. A little bit earlier in the year,
Speaker 1: as talking to Boaz Weinstein, who has been using prediction
Speaker 1: markets to inform some of the ways he's thinking about
Speaker 1: putting trades on. How much are you talking to institutional investors,
Speaker 1: hedge funds and other large investors in terms of how
Speaker 1: they're using your platform and maybe even putting much larger
Speaker 1: dollars to work.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny because when I tell people about
Speaker 2: the story of Caush, you know, the genesis of Calshi
Speaker 2: is I was spent out my golden sacks. And at
Speaker 2: the time, it was twenty sixteen that summer, and at
Speaker 2: the time, most of the men that was coming from
Speaker 2: institutional investors was actually, can we put a trade on
Speaker 2: Brexit or hedge against Brexit, or can we take a
Speaker 2: position on Trump or hedge against Trump? So it was
Speaker 2: very simple, like it's Tritians like retail. They think in
Speaker 2: normal human terms, like what will happen in the future,
Speaker 2: and let me figure out how to make money off
Speaker 2: of it or trade on it. But the problem is,
Speaker 2: like you know, for example, we told people like you
Speaker 2: should shore the SMP if Trump wins, and then you know,
Speaker 2: they were right about Trump winning, but then the SMP rally,
Speaker 2: so they lost money. So that was the idea when
Speaker 2: we really created prediction markets six years ago. So we
Speaker 2: started coming in twenty eighteen, and when we came up
Speaker 2: with the idea, it was basically this idea of like, well,
Speaker 2: there's a financial market for all these different things except
Speaker 2: for the one thing that people care most about, which
Speaker 2: is questions about the future. So how about we build
Speaker 2: that financial market for them to take direct exposure to
Speaker 2: all these different questions. And our approach has always been
Speaker 2: like the most important thing to do first is to
Speaker 2: legal lice friction market. So that so Calshi. What we
Speaker 2: did is we created the category, then we legalize it
Speaker 2: first and foremost, and you know, there's a long history
Speaker 2: that we had with the government to you know, going
Speaker 2: through the process for years and then soothing government to
Speaker 2: open the asset class ope wide open, which has finally
Speaker 2: enabled us to achieve division of being able to attract
Speaker 2: institutions and for people to think discredibly and seriously, and
Speaker 2: we're very very excited about that. We're seeing a ton
Speaker 2: of demand going forward.
Speaker 3: How do you pick trek the things that people can
Speaker 3: bet on? You've had contracts on, well, the Pope obviously
Speaker 3: was was an important one, but recently you've had I
Speaker 3: guess a market in whether or not the CEO of
Speaker 3: Astronomer would resign after the Coldplay kiss cam incident, Like
Speaker 3: how do you find these things and choose to put
Speaker 3: them up?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the interesting thing, the way I think
Speaker 2: about it is, you know, prediction markets are a financial
Speaker 2: market for any questions about the future, right, And if
Speaker 2: you think about it that way, you just have to
Speaker 2: figure out, like, what are the most pressing, interesting, important
Speaker 2: questions about the future that we have today, this week,
Speaker 2: this month, And that's really kind of how we generate
Speaker 2: these questions. So, you know, on that day, obviously the
Speaker 2: Astronomer's CEO went absolutely viral, and the number one question
Speaker 2: that people were asking on social was is he going
Speaker 2: to stick around? Or is he going to get fired,
Speaker 2: and so we sprinted and we listed it, and that
Speaker 2: market was absolutely explosive. We've seen something like fifty million
Speaker 2: impressions on that market and a lot of people made
Speaker 2: a lot of money, you know, trading and forecasting whether
Speaker 2: he was going to get ousted and this is important
Speaker 2: for washing or like whether he was going to stick
Speaker 2: around or be gone. That's you know, going to have
Speaker 2: a huge impact on the valuation of the company, and
Speaker 2: a lot of people are positioned in that company. So
Speaker 2: it really is about what our customers want, what our
Speaker 2: users are suggesting, and what's viral and trending on any
Speaker 2: given week.
Speaker 3: What are some of the most surprising, big volume bets
Speaker 3: that you've seen, Trek. I mean, it's such a wide
Speaker 3: range of issues, right, tell us about the volumes of
Speaker 3: some of these things, like how much were people betting
Speaker 3: on the astronomer CEO's resignation, and what are some of
Speaker 3: the ones that have surprised you.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny because you know the history sort
Speaker 2: of We won the lawsuit in October and then we
Speaker 2: launched the election market. So it was the first time
Speaker 2: that prediction markets were fully legalized in the US, including elections,
Speaker 2: and then you know, you may remember our numbers completely
Speaker 2: skyrocketed during the election month, right so October November we
Speaker 2: were number one on the app store, we had five
Speaker 2: hundred million unique side visitors. We're pretty much kind of
Speaker 2: the largest website on the planet. For a few hours
Speaker 2: on election night, and then people have the questions like
Speaker 2: is this done? You know, is this going to kind
Speaker 2: of go away after the election, And you know, we're
Speaker 2: extremely proud to announced that this June actually last month,
Speaker 2: we had more volume than the election month. And so
Speaker 2: I think something CALC did something here, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: after we've legalized and opened the space, but then we've
Speaker 2: also taken it mainstream where the average Americans have the
Speaker 2: Calci app in their hand and they're trading on things
Speaker 2: and debating with their friends. Now there's a shift in
Speaker 2: mentality and shift in behavior that we've enacted with the
Speaker 2: American people where now every time they see a headline,
Speaker 2: they see the news, they want to take action on it.
Speaker 2: They want to get informed about the market and see
Speaker 2: what's happening, the same way they did with the election.
Speaker 2: And so we see across the board. You know, I
Speaker 2: mentioned the Pope, the astronomer's CEO is a very interesting market.
Speaker 2: Whether TikTok is going to get banned, that saga is
Speaker 2: not done. Sports has been an extremely fast growing category
Speaker 2: on Calshi. We're actually the fastest growing thing that happened
Speaker 2: to sport in a decade.
Speaker 1: At the same time, you're watching a lot of other
Speaker 1: companies get really interested in the space and other contenders
Speaker 1: able to get a little bigger. You see polymarket for example,
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice ending their probe, them striking the
Speaker 1: deal to buy a derivative exchange in clearinghouse in the
Speaker 1: US market, Robinhood looking at prediction contracts as well. What
Speaker 1: does this mean for you to see that much more competition?
Speaker 1: Does it make you want to bring on more investors,
Speaker 1: do acquisitions on your own, or even sell a company
Speaker 1: at some point?
Speaker 2: Well, it's actually very simple, right, Like you know, whenever
Speaker 2: you see it, this is not not utilian industry. Like
Speaker 2: we've had an incredible amount of success. If you look
Speaker 2: at our volumes, if you look at our revenue trajectory,
Speaker 2: if you look at our customer base on how it's grown,
Speaker 2: it's super normal for competition to basically want to follow,
Speaker 2: you know, and we're excited about that competition. That's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's a validation of the business model, it's a validation
Speaker 2: of the market is going to be very large and
Speaker 2: it's growing, and we have you know, we're squarely in
Speaker 2: the lead position with a very very strong headstart because
Speaker 2: of our unwaivering commitment to build it legally, build it
Speaker 2: credibly in the US, and now a lot of people
Speaker 2: sort of are, you know, trying to replicate the setup
Speaker 2: and do the same exact things that we've done over
Speaker 2: the last few years. So we're super excited about that,
Speaker 2: and we see the marketplace going exponentially over the next
Speaker 2: few years, and we're going to keep being in the
Speaker 2: lead position.
Speaker 1: Turk, what are the odds that you go public?
Speaker 2: I beg, Yeah, you know, I can't bet or trade
Speaker 2: on prediction markets because I run one, but you know
Speaker 2: I like that side of the trade, is what I'll say.
Speaker 3: All Right, Trek, great having you on the program. Please
Speaker 3: come in and sit at the desk with us next
Speaker 3: time you're in New York City. CEO of Klshi there,
Speaker 3: Tarek Mansour