Chris Best, the co-founder and CEO of Substack, explained a bit in a post on the platform about how this is all going to work. Substack has allowed for the inclusion of Polymarket embeds into blogs since 2024, and the new update mostly seems like it will streamline the process. Notably, the prediction charts can now be added to Notes (which look more like the kinds of posts you’d expect to find on X or Bluesky) instead of the previously full length posts. “This means you can quickly reference a prediction market that automatically refreshes with the latest odds, while sharing commentary, responding to news, or sparking a discussion—whether you’re writing a full article or a quick note,” writes Best. Best also says that one in five of the 250 highest-paid Substacks have already integrated some of these features before the recent update. His post continues, “Prediction markets are an emerging technology that aggregates real-time estimates of what will happen in the future.”
Betting on the future—on everything from whether Teyana Taylor would win her Golden Globe to whether the U.S. will strike Iran— has become huge business in the last few years. Several states have made moves to try to ban markets like Polymarket and Kalshi, arguing that they constitute illegal casinos. This week, however, the Trump administration’s new Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman went on record, per PBS News, to defend those companies’ desire to operate wherever they want. PBS News also reports that Donald Trump Jr. has investments in Polymarket and is a strategic advisor to Kalshi.
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