As the artificial intelligence craze continues to expand unabated, gamblers and betters are raking in the benefits. Individuals are cashing in on predicting AI’s top models, upcoming AI model releases, and their success or adoption rates.
On sites like Kalshi and Polymarket, trading volume around AI prediction markets has surged to nearly $20 million in August. Kalshi, in particular, has seen 10 times the volume of AI trades compared with the beginning of the year.
Site users rack every corner of the internet for clues on which AI model is worthy of an investment as they constantly engage in wagers. One user, Foster McCoy, made $10,000 in just a few hours in early August by betting against the success of OpenAI’s GPT-5 release.
Just as AI development is continuously expanding, so is the number of people betting on AI markets. Wagers may range from “Best AI at the end of 2025,” “AI regulation becomes federal law this year,” and “Will Sam Altman be granted an equity stake in OpenAI this year?”
AI market betting is based on a cents-over-a-dollar system to reflect the odds. As more people fell in line with the Gemini bet, the price rose, raising the odds in favor of his bet. Ultimately, he sold his stake for 87 cents and raked in the profits.
Success in this emerging but clearly lucrative market is dependent on information, and traders rely heavily on social media for any insight they can gain. Gamblers most closely monitor platforms like X, Discord, and LMArena, which is a leaderboard where people rate AI model performance in blind tests.
After GPT-5’s debut, Elon Musk took to X to claim the superiority of his xAI Grok chatbot. The posts sent the “Grok to Win” market up more than 500% within hours, which later fell again.
Social media, in particular, plays a key role in generating profit within the industry. A recent Harvard University graduate, Rishab Jain, told the Wall Street Journal, “I’m almost obsessively up-to-date with what’s going on in this world. Google has so many products that need to integrate a new model before it officially launches, and you can see those changes happening in the back end if you know where to look.”
For now, betting on the AI market remains relatively accessible. It remains to be seen what regulations, if any, will be implemented going forward as the market and the practice continue to expand.
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