The New York Stock Exchange owner wants in on election betting—what that means for the industry

The New York Stock Exchange’s (NYSE) parent company Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) said on Tuesday it will invest up to $2 billion into the crypto-based betting platform Polymarket.

The move marries the more traditional, regulated NYSE with the riskier prediction markets, and is generally seen as a move by the iconic, 233-year-old exchange to keep up with its competitors by capitalizing on the growing popularity of betting on all kinds of things.

“Our partnership with ICE marks a major step in bringing prediction markets into the financial mainstream,” Shayne Coplan, CEO of Polymarket, told Fast Company. “Together, we’re expanding how individuals and institutions use probabilities to understand and price the future . . . Realizing the potential of new technologies, such as tokenization, will require collaboration between established market leaders and next-generation innovators.”

Launched in 2020, Polymarket allows users to bet on the outcome of real-world events, such as hot topics like political elections, upcoming sports events, weather patterns, awards (this year’s Noble Peace Prize winner), predictions in the finance market (“Will Bitcoin hit above $120,000 today?”), and random pop-culture questions (“What will be the highest grossing movie in 2025?“).

A look at the platform on Tuesday shows some of the biggest bets going were around questions like: “When will the Government shutdown end?” (68% said October 15 or later); “Who will win the New York City Mayoral Election?” (Zohran Mamdani at 89%, Andrew Cuomo at 10%); and “Who is going to be the World Series Champion 2025?” (so far, the Los Angeles Dodgers are edging out the Toronto Blue Jays 36% to 19%).

And those predictions, while seemingly fun, are big business—valued at roughly $8 billion, according to a statement from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) to Bloomberg, which also noted ICE will distribute Polymarket’s event-driven data, and has also agreed to partner on future tokenization initiatives.

The ICE investment also provides good optics for the betting platform, which is trying to boost its credibility and re-establish its presence in the United States following a probe by the Department of Justice and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which was dropped back in July. The Justice Department had been investigating whether Polymarket allowed U.S. users onto the site when they were banned from doing so.

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