Insights from DOMA: A Top Prediction Market Trader

The following is a rare interview with DOMA, one of the best and most profitable prediction market traders of

all time. In this conversation, we cover a ton of topics such as the poly market suit debate, how to make money on

prediction markets, and if there is still edge in 2025. Hope you all enjoyed and do not forget to subscribe.

Yo yo, what's up, man? Hey, how's it going, dude? It's going well. Is it Doma? Am I

pronouncing that correctly? Yeah, Dmer. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a Boston accent of the of Domer. you from

Boston? No, no, but one of my friends is, and he would always say it like that.

Oh, that's awesome. Um, dude, I appreciate you joining on such short notice. How are you?

Yeah, I'm great. How are you doing? I'm well, man. I um I was giving the chat like a little bit of We're live

right now, by the way. I was giving um the chat a little bit of a a background on who you are from what I know. I gave

you a little bit of background about myself which is we're mostly like a cryp basically all crypto fi uh finance

focused audience stream platform but you know poly markets on polygon I would consider it a a crypto platform and what

you do has some overlap there so I guess the for an intro here like can you give me in the chat an intro on like who you

are what you do and sort of how you grew your platform yeah well before I go into that so I

The reason I know you is because there was a market on whether you would ask Trump a question and I was the biggest

loser in that market. I did not think Oh, you I thought you found us from poker. You bet on that.

Yeah. No [ __ ] way. How much did you lose on it?

I don't know. It doesn't five grand maybe. Not a big deal. No [ __ ] way. That is awesome. I mean,

not awesome for you. That's hilarious though. No, I mean it is funny. It's a funny

story because I remember the video. I was like, "Oh my god, he really did it." That is too good. I thought cuz you you

DM'd us from uh you DM'd me when we did the poker stream, which was a little bit of a mess, and you asked like when we

were going to publish the winners and whatnot, and you bet on that as well. Did you How did you do on that?

Yeah, I did. I did well on that one because I was like following it super closely. But but yeah,

that is funny. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so background on myself. Uh I've been I started off as a poker player. I

I had a regular job out of college. I quit that to start playing poker and then I very quickly like moved into

betting on politics and like movies like movie box office betting was really big back then and that has kind of grown and

grown and grown and then Poly Market and Koshi to a smaller extent has kind of like accelerated that. The past few

years have just been bonkers. And I went from like a small little person trying to, you know, ek out a living to like

someone that's actually making real money, which is kind of cool. Sick background. I I'm curious like how

Okay, so you you are basically trading prediction markets full-time at this point.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Full-time. How big is the group of power users that are also trading prediction markets

full-time? like how how big is that group? Yeah, I mean so for a long time it was

probably literally one person and that would be me. So but in the past few years it's pro, you know, I would guess

maybe like 50 people at least, you know, it's it's pretty big compared to where it was and obviously it's still small

compared to where it will be, you know, 5 years from now. It was seriously just you like what what

were you primarily betting on and what were you p primarily making most of your money on?

Dude, I was grinding. I was on every single illegal sports book in the world. I was, you know, trying to win a hundred

bucks there, 200 bucks there. Like I was just trying to eek out a living and but it was really fun. It was really

challenging and, you know, it was really cool that I didn't have to get a real job. But yeah, it was a lot of grinding

like small stuff and and my big wins were always like who's going to win best picture at the at the Oscars or the

presidential election and h like how did you have edge betting on like the best picture at the Oscars?

Like what did you know that other people didn't know? Dude, uh just so much research. I'm

listening to every Well, I mean if if you think about like okay, who's going to win the Oscars? It's a set number of

voters. Like there's 6,000 voters. They have opinions. People talk to those people. So if you listen to enough

people, if you if you try and distill enough of the opinion, like you can kind of get a gauge on what's going to win.

And you know, back then there was less analytics. People weren't as smart about it. They were like, "Oh, I like this

movie. I'm going to bet on this." So it it wasn't as clued in as it is now. It's a lot harder to get an edge, especially

where numbers are concerned. You are you're f this is fascinating. Uh I have many questions for you. Let me

ask you this. How much has Poly Market coming onto the scene changed like your ability to bet in prediction markets and

just like changed the whole scene as a whole? Yeah. I mean it it accelerated it

greatly. I I mean I remember when I first heard about Poly Market which was probably like three months before I

joined and I was like this is it's not going to work. It's crypto. It's silly and it's like and then I talked to Shane

who's the the founder CEO of Poly Market and he's like you know it's going to be big you're going to be big people are

going to know who you are like you got to trust me it's going to happen and it's like it's so interesting thinking

back on that cuz it's like I did not have any faith that they would succeed and they've succeeded beyond what I

thought they would be able to do like the the volume for the 2024 election was just bonkers multiple billions of

dollars it's Crazy. So, did you make money on the 2024 election?

Well, I mean, if if you look at it during the whole year, then yes, I made a ton of money, but on the on the actual

election day itself, I face planted. I thought I thought Camala was like a 6040 favorite, and that's obviously looks

very stupid in hindsight. Uh, that's interesting. Um, oh, so as these prediction markets get more

popular and there's more people that basically do this as their full-time job, do you think your edge is

deteriorating? I mean, yes and no. Because it's like, yes, it's harder to get an edge and

you're competing against so many more people, but also the pie's getting bigger, right? So, it's like if you can

carve out just a little piece of the pie and the pie is getting a lot bigger, then you're still making more money even

if you're not as good compared to everyone else as you used to be. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. So, there's there's more money for the taking.

Exactly. Yeah. You um I had to like figure out what I was working with here. So, I I went

through some of your tweets and was reading some of your threads, and you wrote this. I mean, unreal post about

how you made $100,000 betting on the Pope. I mean, dude, it was like I you're like analyzing the the writings of

Italian news articles. Like, it was it was a fascinating post. I don't want to make you like repeat it and rehash it,

but could you maybe give like a high level for the chat of like how you made 100K betting on the Pope and how you

were able to identify that you even had an edge on something on a market like that?

Yeah. I mean, so like kind of the interesting and really fun thing about prediction markets is let's say

something h like Pope Francis passes away and you know like three weeks from now or whatever there's going to be a

papal conclave you know and they put up the markets it's kind of like a race like everybody is starting at the exact

same point we probably know next to nothing about the popes the cardinals the process and it's like can you do

research better than everyone else can you do research faster than everyone else you And as these markets are

getting more and more liquid as more people are turning tuning in as it's getting closer to the actual conclave

itself, you know, the the the amount of money that you can bet is increasing. And so you really really really have to

make sure that you're staying at in this race against other people that you're staying a little bit ahead and that you

can kind of get this edge over other people. Dude, that was an unreal post. Like you

usually you don't do that, right? because it's like you don't want to give up your edge, but because the pope is

only there's only new pope every you know what 15 years it is like you felt comfortable putting that out.

Yeah. I mean so much of what we bet on is kind of like a repeatable event like you know every four years is the

presidential election and you know things like that every year is the best picture race but like um obviously the

papal conclave who knows when like every 15 years or so it happens. I think there was one time we went 30 years without

one. So I felt pretty comfortable thinking that I'm not going to be betting on this probably like 15 years

from now. So I can I could probably go chapter inverse through the whole thing. So there's this um I don't know how deep

you are in crypto if at all. I can ask you about that a little bit after. There's this sort of phenomenon in

crypto where there's very popular traders just like I would imagine there are prediction markets and when they buy

tokens that are lower market cap lower liquidity people track their wallets they tail and the coin goes up sometimes

significantly depending on who it is like when you bet especially on on lower volume lines or lower liquidity lines

like are you moving markets? Are people tailing you enough to substantially move the price?

Yeah. Um, sometimes. And that's a little bit annoying. That That's one slightly annoying thing about Poly Market is, you

know, it's on the blockchain. All your bets are public. So, it's kind of hard to be incognito and be like, "Oh, I'm

going to try and get a bunch of shares of XYZ." Cuz like other people are like, "Oh, he's acquiring XYZ. He's not an

idiot. Like, what does he see?" But, you know, by the same token, you can see what other people are doing. And then

also a big part of prediction market trading is being able to react quickly and being

able to react correctly. And so it's not necessarily the acquisition, the long-term

acquisition of shares that you're really worried about. It's more like what you're doing in the moment.

And so is the majority of your day like locked in front of a computer trying to arbitrage news as quickly as possible?

Yeah. I mean I mean when you say it like that it sounds it sounds very silly. I mean that's what we do. We [ __ ]

stare at charts all day anyways. That's the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's like but but

it's very dynamic, you know, because it's like you get up one day and you're reading Italian newspapers trying to run

it through a translator figuring out if this word translated incorrectly and then the next day, you know, you're

watching a movie about Britney Spears to figure out if you know she's still sane or not. you know that it's it wildly

different from day to day like depending on the hot market or what you're betting on at the time. So the dynamic nature of

it is really really compelling to me. Um so yeah I I do stare at news but it tends to it tends to differ and being

able to react quickly is also super important. So yeah it's important to be in front of a computer as much as

possible. Is the skill set required to be good at this largely the same as it was when you started in like 2007? Your

bio says, uh, yeah. So, no, because back then, if you think about 2007, that was before

Nate Silver was a thing, right? I think maybe he had a blog that was read by like 10 people at that point. So

analytics in general was just not really paid attention to. So much of what you what you were seeing on like the news or

even like reading on the news was punditry. People making guesses. It wasn't really like people weren't really

going into the polls and trying to figure out X Y and Z. Yeah. And and the second order of that is like all these

correlations that exist, right? If you think that for instance Obama's going to win Ohio, he's probably going to win

these other four states, too. So you can react before everyone else. So you know people are so much more attuned to the

analytical nature of things than they were back then and you could just just by knowing math and being clued in like

you can get just such an edge but um yeah that that facet has changed quite a bit.

That's interesting. Um, okay. So, I want to talk a little bit about what happened with Poly Market and the suit situation

and then kind of go into like how that's even possible, how the Oracle works. Um, so did you bet on the Zalinsky suit

market? Like, did you make money on it? Did you lose money on it? Yeah, so I I I wasn't involved in the

most recent one because it was just so silly, but but I did bet on one. So, this market has been existing for like

four months now. Um, so the full context is they decided to start putting up this market right after Zalinsky was dressed

down in the Oval Office by Trump and JD Vance, right? So, and they were like, you know, they were making fun of how he

was dressed, etc. So, the the market kind of became a proxy on two things. Number one, he's going to wait till the

war is over to wear a suit, so is the war going to end? And then number two, is he going to kind of bend the knee to

Trump? Because Trump was like, "This guy needs to wear a suit. So if he wears a suit then it's like he's showing like

subservience to Trump or what you know whatever you get the gist. So it it it was a market on this very specific

thing. And uh the first fight actually so he he wore this like quasi suit thing to the Pope's funeral right people were

like I'm not sure. Is that a suit? Is that a suit? And when I first saw the market it was at like 90% for yes. And I

was like, I'm not sure this is a suit. Like, it's not structured. Like, there there's all these men's wear technical

technicalities. Like, he's not wearing a a tie. It's not structured. Like, I'm not sure that this counts. Like, cuz if

you think about the the the derivation of the market, it's like about whether Zilinsky will put on this business suit

that Trump wanted wanted him to put on. And he's like very specifically dressing differently. So, the the interesting

thing about the most recent fight is like he's kind of been wearing the same thing as a formal quote unquote suit for

like 3 months. And when this market was like first starting to get really popular, everyone thought it was yes.

And I came along and I was like, uh, I'm I've been on no. So, so I didn't make a lot of money on no. And then fast

forward to the most recent fight, he what what changed in this one is he wore pretty much the exact same thing, but

there were a few media outlets that were like, oh, hey, he started wearing a suit, right? And the market is like,

will the media report that he wore a suit? So these guys had the people that were betting on yes and ended up losing

their money. Like like they had a point that like there's all these media outlets that have now called this a

suit. So like you know we deserve our money etc. So that's kind of like the the the history of the market. Um and

obviously the most recent fight turned into a big you know cluster bleep. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to curse on

here. No, you can say whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a cluster

[ __ ] And it was it's kind of embarrassing for everyone involved and you know it's a it's a shame when stuff

like that happens. So then can you get into the nuance a little bit about like the mechanics of how poly markets work

and then why from what I recall this market was able to be overturned. Yeah. So, so there's a third part.

There's a protocol called Ma and they have their own token and they're kind of the backs stop to every single market

and like you never really hear about it because 99% of markets like nobody like there's no controversy. Things are just

straightforward yada yada yada. So it's like you know who won the the Blue Jays game and you submit the Blue Jays won

and it goes to Yuma and they just rubber stamp it and it goes through etc. The only time you really hear about um is

when there's um disputes because let's say you submit, okay, I think Zinsky wore a suit. I'm going to submit yes.

And I say, oh, he didn't wear a suit. You can then go into the MA system and submit a dispute, right? And that costs

750 bucks. So, everybody kind of has to put up put up a shut up. You have to put up money in order to dispute things or

submit things. So, and then at that point when there's a dispute, that's when the token holders get involved. And

usually that doesn't end in a pleasing fashion for everyone involved cuz it's kind of like

uh they're not super active and you you're like tons of people are arguing and posting and it's unclear if anyone

reads this or cares or so it's not it's not a very satisfying experience for for anyone involved when gets super

involved. And so who holds these tokens? Is it like a is it the cryptocoin? Like what

is it? Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a cryptocoin and I think it's uh Risk Labs created this and I think they own a couple of

other projects that are more wellknown like the uh the across protocol uh protocol like a bridge or something. So,

I it's it's a company with multiple streams of of crypto business and this is one facet of it. So almost all of the

big holders are risk lab employees or like OG like invested in UMA on like day two or whatever. There's very little

um there very few people are buying new tokens of this thing which is kind of the really frustrating part because it's

so it's supposed to be decentralized. In an ideal world it's like okay a million people are going to vote on this and

we're going to we're going to get we're going to figure out the right answer. But the reality is, you know, it's like

10 people that are really voting on this. Yeah. There's like five people that hold

the coin. So So, um, market resolves, somebody has an issue with it. They pay $750 to basically dispute it. It then

goes to to the holders, and then what happens from there? Like that you basically stake your tokens on like yes

or no. Like what percentage do you need to get through? Yeah. So, I they're changing it all the

I I think the current one is you have to reach 66%. Right? So there's been a couple times where it's like 50/50 and

then they roll it and they run the vote over again. But what happens for every user like let's say you have a bunch of

yes in this market and you're like I'm convinced this is the suit. Like I'm going to make the argument. So they have

a discord and they put up a thread whenever there's a dispute and people go in there and they post paragraphs. It's

like nobody's reading all this [ __ ] It's just like if you scrolled through it'd be longer than a novel, but people

are like super passionate about it because they have, let's say, 2,000 bucks at risk and they don't want to

lose 2,000 bucks. So, they're going in there and they're making an argument and then the people are like, "No, you're

stupid. It's it should be no and these are all the reasons it should be no." So, it it gets pretty granular and it

gets a little messy and people are really butting heads and you know, tempers are rising. So it's it's not

like the best it's not the best way to figure things out. So yeah, I mean this is largely the same

problem with uh with Dows and governance, but that's its own conversation. Um the circulating market

cap of is 100 mil, which is like not that high. And with 60% agreement, you could basically overturn

any market. So $60 million can sway the outcome of any market. is that like like have there been other examples of

egregious ones here? I I saw there was a baseball market that got [ __ ] up the other day. Uh it doesn't feel like it's

that expensive to to like overturn the outcome on on some of these markets. Yeah. But like okay, that's like a

literally a one-time attack because let's say you tried to do that, it would cost you a lot more than 60 million to

buy 60% and then secondly like the protocol becomes worthless. So you you would need to make more than 60 million

on the on the scam in order to do that. But but I mean yeah, theoretically somebody could acquire a decent number

of tokens and then be able to influence the vote in a in a significant way. But I don't think anybody has really done

that yet, which is a good thing because it's like you kind of want a a wall between the people that are deciding the

markets and the people that are betting on the markets. Okay. Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Literally, you could do it, but then the whole thing goes to zero. So you better [ __ ] make nine figures. Are you a

hold do you hold exactly? Do you hold a UMA token? Are you are you

participating or not? I think I have like some very small like nothing nothing significant maybe a few

thousand bucks worth. And then is this like is this sorry for some of the the noob questions. Is this

different from how like Koshi works? Like is this a scalable system that is just going to be how prediction markets

work long term? I mean so yes and no. There there are different attitudes towards resolving

markets, right? So what Khi does is they literally have let's say three employees and the employees look at every single

market and they're like, "Okay, this is yes, this is no." And that so it's a very centralized process, but that's

very susceptible to human error because if you only have three people looking at a market, you know, there's not a lot of

redundancy there. So, there have been a few instances where someone literally goes in at the last second and let's say

it's the Blue Jays and and they bet on the Tigers to win, right? So, the Blue Jays have won the game and they bet on

the Tigers at 99 cents or whatever, right before it expires, right? So, this comes across the desk of the Koshi

employee and he's like, "Oh, it's at 99 for Detroit. Detroit won rubber stamped." This doesn't happen all the

time, but has happened a few times where they've seen a high price and they expire it completely the wrong way.

Right? So there there are downsides for centralized um you know like employees expiring a market whereas poly market

has taken a kind of a decentralized approach but it's only decentralized in theory right it not it's not very

decentralized in practice and then the second thing is you need kind of like buyin from the pe if if it's

decentralized let's say let's even say it's perfectly decentralized and you have 10,000 people owning it it's like a

great But even even in that circumstance, you need those 10,000 people to like be

buying in and believing in your market and not just not caring and not reading like they have to actually be engaged

and care about the platform and care about getting things right. So there are pluses and minuses to both systems and

you know prediction markets in general are still trying to figure out the way forward on how they how they figure out

um oracle issues. Got it. The main thing that comes across my feed is like cow sheet poly market

beef like employees like calling out poly market is like a seems to be like a popular thing that happens on the

timeline. I mean it's it it's ridiculous because it's like you know it's a growing space

and so much of the competition of prediction markets is not against each other right it's against the gambling

website or buying mean coins or you know whatever like it's it's other things besides prediction markets and and what

the goal of these companies right now should be is to like educate people and like you know show the good parts of

this like thing and and keep the pie growing rather than trying to you know get into war right now.

Okay. So then I have to ask like what is your take on how the Silinski market resolved? Like do you think it was a

suit or no? Me personally, I definitely do not think it was a suit. But I I I do think that

they had a point because it was like so many media people were kind of like, "Oh, this is a suit." suit and and if

you have that many and and they also got a few men's wear experts to weigh in and and they were like well technically it's

a suit and so if if if you don't if you keep the market vague right and and you don't like define like oh he has to wear

a tie and you know it has to be x y and z then like they have a point bringing up all this stuff you know so um I I

think ultimately no is the right call but like it was it was pretty close for me to be switching back to yes

Where does this fall under like biggest prediction market controversies of all time?

Um, yeah, but I mean prediction marketers are getting bigger in general. So, I mean, it's sort of like the latest

controversy is always the biggest. So, I I I do think it's the biggest just because they've managed that the people

who bought Yes. were very loud about it and posting on Twitter and you know that that's their right. But they managed to

get it into some like mainstream outlets that were covering this. So from that sense, you know, and I've also had

people randomly DM me, right? Like, oh, what do you think of the suit? Like like you message me, what do you think of

this suit? Like so many people who are not really paying attention like tune in to this very

controversial thing. So it's it it it is the biggest one and it's not a good look for really anyone involved. Yeah, some

some bro some of these [ __ ] posts these threads there's like all these pictures of Shane next to SPF and like

it it was getting it was getting dark on the timeline. It was wild. People were really but rightfully so. Like you know

people when people have money on the line things things can get weird but uh I I appreciate the take on that.

Um yeah I mean people people get desperate. I want I need like a little bit more

lore on some of these prediction like the history of prediction markets like what

Oh, okay. Well, let me give you one. Have you ever heard of the guy called GCR?

Oh, okay. I was just about to ask you. I mean, he's like the crypto legend. Like, what do you know about GCR?

Okay. Okay. Well, I I I probably can't reveal everything that I know, but but I knew this guy when he had barely any

money and he had never heard of crypto. He was on prediction markets and he was I could tell he was a good trader and I

like connected with him and and we ended up I invited him to this chat that I have and that in that chat is when he

discovered crypto and he like created a crypto channel and I you know stupid me. I was like no these dumb asses are still

talking about crypto again. But like, you know, meanwhile they're making millions of dollars and he leaves the

chat and, you know, the next time the next time I hear from him, he's worth like 200 million or whatever. So, it it

it's interesting that like, you know, all these more people than you think started in prediction markets or my

other world was poker. It's like, you know, these are kind of like the keys to success is learning how to bet on these

these type of markets. You knew GCR before he ever even knew what crypto was.

Yeah. Yeah, he he literally discovered crypto in a crypto channel in the in my chat.

And you just like told him he was [ __ ] and crypto sucks. No, I mean it wasn't even that. Like I I

was just like doing my own thing. I was like, "Oh, they're still chatting in the crypto chat. No need to read that."

How How was like OG GCR as a prediction market trader? Super sharp. very very well. I mean, as

you can imagine, the guy the guy is very very very smart and he was kind of like um creative and like cunning, you know,

like all these skills that you would want in someone who's like betting for a living. Um you know, it it it's kind of

like um a chess player who's thinking like multiple moves ahead, right? It's not just like, oh, what's this going to

be? It's like, oh, if that happens, then I want to be ready for it and I want to be prepared for it and I want to be

buying XYZ. So, I mean, credit to him. The guy's the guy's a genius and and he found his niche and he made a ton of

money. Is there any like really famous GCR prediction market trade that you were

around for that like has has war stories about it? Uh, in terms of like making a ton of

money. Yeah. Like huge profit. Yeah. Well, I mean, I was kind of privy

to one of those, which was um Joe Biden dropping out and Camala becoming the nominee. So, back in like uh it was like

towards the beginning of 2024, right? As it was very clear that it was going to be Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, right?

I I was starting to buy and and and I was realizing it was like a stupid bet, but I was starting to buy a ton of

Camala Harris and a ton of um Nikki Haley thinking what the thesis was this these guys are both really old, right?

They're not like super popular, right? Even within their own party, people are like, "I'm not sure about this guy." And

then the the other facet is like they could have a health issue at any point in time. So, it's like I want to be

prepared for this and like even if there's no health issue, even if we get to June and I've bought all these shares

of Camala Harris or Nikki Haley, you know, there'll probably still be conspiracy theorists that are like, "Oh,

he's about to drop out. He's about to drop out." So, I I'll probably be able to at worst sell it at cost. But, so I

was acquiring literally millions of shares of Camala. And then when that debate happened and Joe Biden was just

like a zombie and he seemed like he had severe mental issues, I was like, you know, the cash registers were starting

to go off in my head. Whoa. And so you I mean you [ __ ] caked it on that trade.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I was buying her below 1 cent and that expired at a at 100 and I was buying millions of shares

at below 1 cent. It was it was crazy. Whoa. And GCR was also in that trade with you.

Um, no he was not. No, no he was not. But I mean, so GCR GCR made an even better trade. Sadly, he

didn't get paid for it back in like right after January 6th, right? So, we're going back to 2021.

Mhm. And it was like Trump was at literally the least popular. He people wanted him

arrested. It was like it's not like this guy's done. like put him out on the farm, right? GCR was messaging me and

he's like, I think Trump's gonna be the nominee in 2024. And I was like, are you on drugs? Like, like what? Like, what

world are you? Like, I literally thought he would, this was the dumbest idea I've ever heard. And he just kept messaging

me about it. And he ended up making a bet with SBF at like 10 to one odds that Trump would be the GOP nominee. And I

think he stood to win like $10 million. Now, obviously that didn't pay out because FTX is no more, but yeah, that

that was an absolutely crazy call and he would have made bank if FTX had survived.

Oh, I like I think I remember how do you even have um like if you go in the head of like a prediction market better, how

do you even develop the foresight to bet something like that? You know, I it it's like you really have

to think of like contingencies. It's like for for instance for instance, so one of my biggest bets for 2028, right?

And and I I haven't really made big bets yet because it's not super liquid. It's hard to bet on it, but like one of my

big bets is AOC to be the nominee. And it's not because I think AOC is going to win, right? It's because I think that

like there's a wing of the Democratic party that could be really really pissed off and they're like, "Okay, we want to

go full populist. Like, let's go [ __ ] socialism. Like, like we're done with all of this." Right? And so, if that

scenario comes to pass, then these AOC shares that I've bought at five and six cents are all of a sudden worth like 40

cents, right? So, it's just like kind of like being creative about the future and thinking about all the scenarios that

could happen and then kind of just making making bets around that. And like oftentimes when you make these type of

bets, like let's say it doesn't happen. Let's say Democrats are like, "Oh, [ __ ] socialism. Oh, [ __ ] AOC." Like, she'll

still probably have true believers and be trading at like 4 cents. So, it's like the worst case scenario is you

barely lose any money, right? The best case scenario is you've hit a huge winner.

Do you think first of all I I like that trade. Do you think that there is a certain archetype of person that is just

built to be a professional better built to bet on prediction markets full-time and then everybody else is just like un

going to be unable to do it? I mean that's that's a really good question. I mean you to me like number

one a really successful prediction market trader number one h has to be like super interested in like

researching stuff right you have to be like really curious about the world like I want to know like oh are we going to

land on the moon I want to research are we going to land on the moon for like the next two hours so you have to be

really curious about like a wide variety of things um and then number two is you have to kind of be you have to be very

very good at at how you're reacting right because like stuff happens all the time and you have to react correctly

when stuff happens and oftent times people don't react don't react correctly like like for instance like just just to

use this very simple very straightforward example the Biden debate last year right so many people watched

that debate and they were like oh things are going to be fine and multiple people that I know that were very serious in

the prediction market space don't exist anymore they they completely wiped their account because they thought it was a

lock guarantee that Biden was a nominee and everything was a meme and it's like even after they watched the debate and

it's like you have to be so you have to be so careful and and and react to things the correct way and not like you

know react to things poorly. I'm I'm not sure if I'm expressing that correctly, but like you know the the the two facets

are curiosity and then really good at being able to react and like kind of forecast the next steps. No, that was

you explained that uh perfectly. Um what Okay, let me ask you this. Like what you're describing to be good at

prediction market betting is probably the very similar skills that would make you good at poker, which are also the

same skills that would make you a good trader. Uh you know, a loop crypto. And I'm I I would also imagine the crypto to

polit um prediction market betting pipeline is like fairly tight. Like do you do you do you trade cryp like you

would be like a legendary memecoin trader? Do you trade crypto? Do you trade stocks? Are you like a do you

trade anything or you're like strictly prediction markets? I mean so I'm probably like an odd case

because I'm not really like trying to get be like rich. I'm just trying to have fun and make money and like, you

know, just do what I love doing. And like what I love doing is trying to predict what's going to happen, the

news, you know, who's going to win the best picture. Like I just love doing this and I love waking up and I love

being able to trade this stuff. So yeah, people have told me, you know, you could make so much more money if you were

doing finance or if you were doing crypto. You know, GCR is like, why why aren't you just doing crypto? Like you

could been retired like four years ago if you did this. And it's like it it it's not what I want to do with my life,

I guess. So, I don't know if that's stupid or, you know, if it's a good thing, but it's just something that I've

chosen to do is just kind of stay in my lane and have fun and and and try to build it from there.

So, you just [ __ ] love the game. Like, you're just doing it for the love of the game.

Yeah. Yeah, dude. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm a true believer. Whoa. Um All right. I'll keep you for a

couple more minutes. I know I told you 30, but like I mean, bro, you're an interesting [ __ ] guy. Gary. Um,

no, it's all good. All right, I got like a twofold here. The first is it might have been the one

you just answered. Um, but what is your profit-wise greatest trade of all time in prediction markets?

Um, so I I I think it would be Camala Harris, which I already mentioned, but that but I can there was one very

similar to that, which was JD Vance to be Trump's VP pick. And that actually started as an even dumber bet than

Camala. And that was back in like February and March when JD Vance was at like 1 to two cents. And I was buying

hundreds of thousands of shares. And here was my thesis. Okay, his previous VP was named Pence. Okay,

Ants is two letters away from Pence. Okay, and Trump is obsessed with marketing. So, it's like he wants this

one syllable name that's extremely similar to Pence and he already won with Pence. So, he's going to he's like I

think this is going to be it. And it ended up working out. And who knows if that had anything to do with it, but

yeah, I'm I I made a few hundred thousand off of that one. You made a few hundred,000 betting on the VP because

his name sounded cool. Well, because his name was similar to Pence. Yeah,

bro. That is not what I thought you were going to say.

I know. I mean, it's very stupid, but it's very funny. So you really are like

I guess when you said about what makes GCR good, you're like he's really creative and you're like thinking

outside the box on these trades. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I mean it's it's easy to be a prediction market trader who's

not creative and make a good living and like I will also say there are people that are super analytical minded who are

building like models and statistics and and they're doing um they're being very successful at their own thing. you know,

aside from those people, like, yeah, you have to be super super creative to be able to make a lot of money. I think you

can make a little bit of money, you can be successful if you're not creative, but if you really want to hit it big,

you got to you got to think outside the box. I honestly can't believe that you that

was your explanation. It was like so incredible. Um, that is so awesome. that that's I I don't even really know

anything about prediction markets and people that are good at betting on them, but I feel like that's where there's a a

degree of separation is is your explanation that is wild. Yeah. I I So, one more quick story. So,

the the my most profitable bet for a very long time, right, because the markets were so much smaller was back in

2008 when McCain was picking his VP and he kept it top secret, right? Nobody knew who it was going to be and like in

the media it's like oh it could be these five guys right so me and another guy so we he announced where he was going to

pick the VP and he announced the date that he was going to pick the VP right so let's say August 30th or whatever so

me and another guy went down the list of all the possible contenders and we're like calling the press offices and we're

like okay where are you going to be August 30th and people are like oh this governor is going to be at the fair that

day and it's like oh this could be [ __ ] that's called the fair. And the fair is like, "Oh yeah, we're expecting

the governor that day." And so we we're going down the list and we're like eliminating people one by one. And it's

like, I don't think it's anybody on this list. Like how the hell are we going to figure out who this VP is? Like we like

we literally know the location and the date. Like there has to be some way to figure it out. So what we did is we

looked at the nearest we found the nearest airport, right? And we're tracking all the flights coming in and

one of the flights was coming in from Alaska. And we're like, "What the?" Because this was in Podunk, Ohio. And

it's like, what the [ __ ] is a flight doing flying from Alaska to Podunk, Ohio? It's like, what is going on here?

It's like, oh, hold on a second. The governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. And we checked the odds and I [ __ ] you not, she

was at 25 to1 and we were able to bet a couple thousand bucks each. And it was like, wow. And and so not only did we

make a ton of money, but I think we were also one of like the very first people in the world to know that he was going

to pick Sarah Palin as his VP. Dude, that is [ __ ] nuts. Oh my god.

Yeah, it's funny. How many people did you have to track? How many How many people were in the

running that you're calling like where they are calling the fair? How How long was the list?

Yeah, I think it was f You know, this is so long ago at this point, but I think it was it was at least five people or

maybe like up to 10 people. uh before we were like, "Fuck this list." Like, it could be anyone,

dude. That is one of the best stories I've ever heard. I'm not going to lie. That is like a legendary story.

Yeah. And And no one else like there is no other volume on on Palin. Like no one

else was do no one else is tracking flights from Alaska. Yeah. No, no, no. It was just it was

just us. I mean, you know, it's pre-anal pre-analytics days. People weren't as sharp as they used to be. you know, if

that happened now, like there'd be 100,000 people tracking flights. So, this is the thing is like

it on Twitter and it was like the first question I asked you and you had a good answer for

it cuz you would think that now in the age of like mass media, social media, AI, it's like how would a literal edge

like that ever slip through the cracks again? Yeah. I mean, so it ha someone has to

discover it. So, you just want that person to be you, right? that someone is gonna figure it out first, right? And

there may be a thousand people trying to figure it out instead of uh 50 people and you just got to be that the the

person who finishes in first place out of that thousand now instead of 50. That's so All right, I got like two more

like major ones for you. The first is just cuz like the lore is fun. Um what is the greatest prediction market trade

that you've ever witnessed like ever? If it hasn't been mentioned yet. Okay. Okay. the Yeah, the the great it

it it wasn't necessarily the most profitable, but the most insane one I've seen was this guy named AG

who secretly figured out that um Rick Scott was not going to take the So, so Rick Scott was the governor of Florida

and he had just been elected senator of a US senator for the state of Florida, right? and all of these guys are um

sworn in on let's say January 6th. I I don't remember the exact date, but let's say it's January 6th. And predict it,

which was really the only prediction market at the time, and they had a $850 limit. Um they put up a market, how many

Republican senators are there going to be on January 10th, right? And this guy AG, I I I I don't know how he figured it

out, but he but he was the first one to figure it out. and he figured it out like days before everyone else that Rick

Scott, for whatever reason, was going to be like, "Well, [ __ ] that. I'm going to be governor of Florida for as long as I

can be and then I'll just join the Senate whenever I want to." So Rick Scott didn't end up joining the Senate

till like January 20th. And all of these markets that have been traded for, let's say, two years, and you know, election

day, people are figuring out how many senators they're going to be. And and this market has to stay up. It's like a

zombie market trading at 99% chance there's going to be, you know, 52 Republican senators on January 10th. All

of a sudden goes from 99% chance to 0% chance because Rick Scott's like, "Well, [ __ ] that. I'm not going to be sworn in

then." And this guy had put in a max bet. So, it was $850 max at 1 cent. And then he was able to put an $850 max on

the the opposite side. So he ended up making it was like $170,000 on a site where that's literally the

most money that you can make. Like that's literally it. And he found it out days before everyone else. And it's just

like I would my mouth dropped as this, you know, it's it's it's like the twist at the end of a movie where it's like,

ah, holy [ __ ] I did not see that coming. This market went from 99 to one. Holy [ __ ] Did you ever figure out how

he did it? I think I you know he calls people all the time. It's it's like me like I'm not

calling people as much as I used to when I was like you know first doing it. I was like like the the Sarah Palin thing.

I was literally like bringing the phone. I'm not doing that as much as as I used to and I should. But he is so aggressive

on the phone and it's like I I'll just be talking to him about a random market. He's like, "Oh yeah, I already called

the government about that market and I found out." So like as soon as he sees a market, he's apparently like calling

people. So I I'm assuming he made it he figured it out through a ton of phone calls to the exact right people.

Wait, explain the the calling thing to me. So like people are just like on the phone all day calling anyone you could

possibly find out that might be related to the market. I mean I I that's his strategy and he's

very very very very good at that. So yes, he he calls people all the Now this guy has a regular job. He's like a he's

like a um a trader in real life and he's very successful. So he doesn't like this is like a hobby for him which is the

funny part about it because he's one of the best people in the space and he'll just like he'll message me he's like oh

I just saw this market and then I called people and it's like oh this is the answer. It's like what the [ __ ]

He's just like you know a superhero like swooping in to like figure out a market before everyone else.

Dude, the calling thing is sick. I [ __ ] that is that is so cool. Is there like um Yeah. Yeah. So, do you

like run a group chat with like like I 25 like best prediction market traders and you guys are in there just like

sharing ideas all day? I mean I'm I'm in a lot it's more dispersed than it used to be. So, I'm in

a lot of like uh highlevel group chats, but yeah, I've been running one for like 10 years now and and we've hit some

really really big plays and like most of the people in the chat are like have made a lot of money. So that's that's

pretty satisfying to know that like you know you put put together a group and like everybody kind of uh ended up

better off because of it. Is prediction market betting a space where you don't really want confluence

like you sort of want to be contrarian to win the hardest? Yes. Yes. because you know

if you're if you're just agreeing with everyone else you're not going to get very good prices because there's going

to be a lot of competition for that. So it's if you really want to make money you you have to figure out where

everybody is wrong. So you know if I'm trading a lot at the time right if I'm like really focused in I'll literally

scroll through the markets like let's say Poly Market has 400 markets like I'm scrolling through the market. I'm

looking at every single one and I'm like, is this price correct? Is this price correct? And and I think that's

one thing that I'm really good at is like being able to see a market and be like, I'm not sure this price is

correct, right? And then you investigate it a little bit and you either figure out, oh, the price is probably right or

or you figure out, oh, I'm on to something like this could be way wrong price, right? So, it it it's kind of

being able to sniff out when other people haven't picked up on something. What percentage of active markets on

Poly Market are you participating in? roughly. Uh well, I'm at the exact at this exact

second I'm not I'm I'm taking a break because we just we just moved and stuff. So I'm But when I was like super active,

it like literally if Poly Market had 400 markets, I would be in 300 or 350 of them like I I was just everything.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that and and I'm not sure I'm not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but yeah, that's

that's what I was doing. Does it like bring you physical pain to be looking at these markets and you can't trade them?

Um I mean I I I if if that was the case then yes I would be I would be physically pain but like

you know for instance like let's say I go on vacation with like my wife or whatever it's like she doesn't want me

trading so it's like I'm I'm getting alerts like like everything is happening as normal. I'm just not trading. And

that can be like super frustrating where it's like I got an alert on my watch, but we're like, you know, at the top of

the Eiffel Tower. It's like, well, I can't do anything right now. Like, cuz there were there were a couple points,

including once on our honeymoon where I was like, time out, time out. I need to like I need to like do something real

quick. And that did not go over super well, but one of them paid for the honeymoon and the other one paid for the

other trip. So, it ended up working out that not even is so good. All right. All right. This is the last thing I'll ask.

I swear I let you go. I said 30 minutes. You stayed for an hour. It It was honestly I I'll glaze after. Um what So

I as one of the most successful political and prediction market betterers of all time, how would you

recommend someone that's a complete newbie to get started? And then is there still edge for someone that's completely

new to make money? Yeah. So yes, there is edge because uh you know as prediction markets have

gotten a lot bigger, there's so many markets, right? And like the really smart people can't be experts at

everything. So you can probably find an edge somewhere if you look hard enough. So that's number one. And then number

two, I I you know, it's like anything. I would deposit it was like me when I first started poker, right? I deposited

100 bucks and I lost it immediately and I was like, well [ __ ] But then I deposited another hundred bucks because

I was like, I think I can do this, right? And it was the second hundred bucks that literally started my whole

career. So what what I would say to people is like, you know, don't be afraid to deposit 100 bucks or 500 bucks

or what whatever you can afford to lose and like play around with it. And maybe you'll lose all your money or maybe

you'll win a ton of money. Maybe you'll figure out it's not for you or maybe you'll figure out it is for you. But,

you know, don't be afraid to take a little risk and play around with it. What do you think you'd be doing right

now if prediction markets just got like fully banned in the US in 2007 or whatever and there's no way around it

and you like you couldn't do this? I would be living outside the US. Yeah, I think

I think I think I would just move. Um, yeah, because I'm I'm, you know, it's it's like a lifestyle now and I'm and

I'm I don't want to say addicted to it because I'm not like addicted to it, but like, you know, it's it's in my blood.

So, I I would probably just leave the US at that. Wait, what was the first thing you've

ever bet on like in your entire life? Like, would you like bet on a high school game when you were like 14 and

then all of a sudden you're like, I I [ __ ] love betting on stuff like No, no, no. So, the the first thing I

ever bet on was like an NBA game and it was like three bucks and and that was when I was a poker player. Uh I don't I

don't know 21 22. Okay. You were a poker player though. Fair.

Yeah. Yeah. And and and I was a poker player who's you know poker is a lot of like boredom between hands, right? So

when you're between hands I'm just like scrolling all this random [ __ ] and it's just like okay there's a sports book

like that could be fun. I'm going to watch the Knicks game. Like I'll put three bucks on it. And then you know I

was scrolling and I saw um there was other stuff right? There was like politics and there was like movies and

it's like what movie is going to win best picture? And so my first like actual bet on prediction markets was

betting 10 bucks that this movie Crash, which people hate now, but uh it was betting 10 bucks that Crash would win

best picture. And I think the odds were like 8 to1. And I won 80 bucks and I thought I was rich. I thought I was a

genius. And that kind of launched my whole career. Do you do like uh this this is my rap.

Do you do like interviews and stuff? Like I I'm shocked that I've like never really heard maybe I I'm just not deep

in prediction markets, but I've never really came across you like until now. Like you're a fascinating guy.

Yeah. I mean, no, I I I do some podcasts here and there. Like I I really only try and do stuff when I feel like it could

be beneficial for the space, you know, because I'm to go back to what I was saying, like I'm a true believer. So if

if I'm going to do something, I feel like I want to be evangelizing for prediction markets and plugging it in a

good way. Um, so I'm not really into self-promotion as much as I am kind of just like plugging the space.

Is there anything you like want to show before we get off? Like do you have like a course or like something you want to

like plug to the audience? I I don't, but I wish I did because like my my I was talking to some friends

beforehand and they were like, "Well, you got to come up with some meme coin and you got to tell us beforehand like

what you're going to mention." But no, I I I don't have anything unfortunately. I'll tell you what, you'd be a legendary

crypto trader. Doma. Honestly, man, this was one of the most fun comments I've had in a long time. I I really

appreciate you coming on. Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. It was great.

Of course, dude. I'll like fire these I'll I fire all the clips on on Twitter. Any will go on YouTube. So, I'll send

you any links if you want them. But, this was a lot of fun. All right. Cool deal, man. Peace.

All right, man. Have a go in.