Things, Ideas & People . . .

A couple of years ago, I wanted to place a bet or two on the Triple Crown horse races. Not knowing that Montanans can’t bet on DraftKings or FanDuel, I signed up for the apps—only to be disappointed. This is true in many other states as well.

While the rest of us are sleeping, there is always someone out there looking for a workaround. Then a couple of weeks ago, we stumbled across a new kind of betting. Apparently, it’s not considered betting— but I don’t know how or why it wouldn’t be.

It’s called predictive marketing contracts, which are sold through a few companies.

One of the sites we found is called Kalshi, “a regulated exchange and prediction market where you can trade on the outcome of real-world events. Buy and sell Event Contracts.”

Another company is Polymarket and we see Robinhood has jumped in as well, where you “Get paid for predicting real-world outcomes.”<...