From Decrypt · By Decrypt Staff
In brief
NEXTPredict brought prediction market exchanges, trading firms and policymakers together in New York on October 22 and 23, less than two weeks before the U.S. midterms.
Chuck Todd, who moderated a panel pitting polls against markets, said he was "bullish on prediction markets for the future of journalism."
Executives from Kalshi, Polymarket and Robinhood pointed to hedging, financial contracts and regulation as the next frontiers beyond elections and sports.
Prediction markets spent two days in the spotlight at NEXTPredict, which brought the industry's biggest exchanges, trading firms and policymakers to Convene Hudson Yards in New York on October 22 and 23.
With the U.S. midterms less than two weeks away, elections dominated the conversation, but executives were just as keen to talk about what comes next.
The hedge that lost
The conference opened with a trade that didn't pay out. NEXTPredict had paid a $12,000 premium on Kalshi for contracts that would have returned around $3 million if more than half of scheduled arrivals at New York's JFK airport were cancelled the day before the event.
"We ended up losing that trade yesterday, right?" NEXTPredict co-founder Pierre Lindh said on Thursday's "Hedging the Unhedgeable" panel. "And I can only say I'm very happy that we lost that trade, because that means we're all here today."
Traditional event insurance covers cancellation, Lindh explained, but "most of these type of force majeure situations won't cancel the event. It will severely damage the event."
Joe Grubb, head of business development at Susquehanna, which took the other side of the trade, said the firm modeled the risk in-house in about a day or two. "It's sort of in our DNA at Susquehanna to price strange things," he said.
Kalshi's director of business development, Nicolas Hull, said small businesses were now hedging on the exchange, starting with a New York bar that covered a Knicks playoff promotion. As long as a contract is certified with the CFTC and has a verifiable data source, "we can list almost anything on our exchange," he said.
This is the team behind NEXTPredict Summit New York.
Months of planning. More late nights than we'll admit. And then, last week, it all came together at Convene, 30 Hudson Yards.
2,000+ of you in the room. 180 speakers. 47 countries. Two weeks before the midterms, the… pic.twitter.com/KCA9TpDCV4
— NEXTpredict (@nextpredictio) October 26, 2026
Chuck Todd and the midterms
Todd, the former NBC News political director, had told Lindh before the event that he was "open minded" about whether markets or pollsters would call the midterms better. By Friday's "Who Calls the Midterms" panel, he sounded closer to a convert.