The Prediction Markets Opportunity – Part 1: From Experiments to Exchanges - Tower Research Capital

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Prediction markets have been reinvented many times in recent decades, from academic experiments, to corporate intelligence tools, crypto protocols, and most recently regulated financial exchanges. Each new approach promised deeper insight into human expectations, but ended up running into similar regulatory and adoption challenges. The most recent success, driven by Kalshi and Polymarket, is not just a product-design or liquidity story; it is also a regulatory story – shaped by litigation, legal interpretation, and compliance strategy as much as by user interfaces and distribution tactics. In this first installment of our two-part series, we trace the winding path of prediction markets from their origins in the Iowa Electronic Markets to today’s multi-billion-dollar venues. We show how they have repeatedly collided with regulators, and how the parallel evolution of sports betting shaped the boundaries of what was considered permissible. Understanding this history helps frame where thes

The Prediction Markets Opportunity – Part 1: From Experiments to Exchanges - Tower Research Capital Skip to content March 10, 2026 - Pietro Decio, Neel Baronia, Damian Stellings - Ventures - Blogs The Prediction Markets Opportunity – Part 1: From Experiments to Exchanges Prediction markets have been reinvented many times in recent decades , from academic experiments, to corporate intelligence tools, crypto protocols, and most recently regulated financial exchanges. Each new approach promised deeper insight into human expectations, but ended up running into similar regulatory and adoption chall

The Prediction Markets Opportunity – Part 1: From Experiments to Exchanges - Tower Research Capital

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