The Ben Mulroney Show - 0.1% of bettors make 70% of the profits on the Polymarket betting platform. hmmmmmm

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

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More human. Well, oftentimes we talk about polymarket here, and it occurs to me some of you might not necessarily know what it is. It's sort of like a function is more like a stock market than a casino, but you can bet on anything. It's about probabilities, right? It's about you can bet that the weather is going to turn or that someone's going to win an election or something as wild as the invasion of Venezuela, right?

Like all of that stuff is available for you to say bet whether or not something's going to happen or not. And it's kind of cool, but it's also kind of a little dangerous. Here at this particular radio station, I know that we're national, but here at this particular radio station, we have been doing a series called 640360, where we try to look at one issue from all angles. And today we're looking, on this show, we're looking at Polly Market. And what it means, what it represents, is it addictive? Is it addicting?

is it gambling? And so who better to talk about stuff like this within Tony Chapman, the host of the award-winning podcast, chatter that matters. Welcome, my friend. Always a pleasure. So what is Polly Market to you?

Gambling. Without question. I mean, it's like a lot of things happening around us, I think one word, fixed. It's fixed. And we've got to be aware of it. Like here's the statistic. All the gambling is billions of dollars now.

Masters was record numbers. Yeah. 10th of 1%, 1 tenth of 1%, actually are making money. 70% of the gains are going to 1 tenth and 1%. So if you tell me that's not a fixed

stock market. Yeah, but okay, so it's true. So the market, it's structured around yes or no questions, right? And shares are priced between a penny and a dollar. And the price of a, like a, if you get it right,

then you make money versus if you get it wrong. But you just talked about the masters, right? If you want to bet on the masters, how can that be fixed unless the Masters is fixed? Well, we can talk about that as well because I just had a person on my show

talking about how so much of sports is fixed. So many individuals, they don't have to fix a game anymore. Is he going to step on the green? Who's going to take the first put? Is he going to miss his put? Right, yeah, that's true. Those are like parlays, right? There's parlays, but that's what the Polymarket is.

It's about these little events. Yeah, it's not just who's going to win the Masters. But think of the math, one-tenth of 1% as commands 70% of the gains. That's like going into a poker game. thinking you're playing with your friends and you've got four of the top poker sharks in front of you and you have no idea that you're playing poker against them. Yeah. I mean, the math is there.

It's very evident the fact that this thing is set up. And by the way, well, she'd get into it. You know, Donald Trump called, well, the world's a casino. Well, Donald Trump Jr. happens to be advisor to the two top polymarket companies out there. And they're talking about how much money has been made in terms of understanding where the chess moves are happening from the White House. Wait a second. So, because there was this rumor, right? because some guy made like 400 grand.

Some anonymous account was set up a few days before the abduction of Maduro in Venezuela. A few days before someone sets up an account, and they bet correctly that he would be absconded with and made 400 grand. 400 grand. Now, people were joking around with no evidence, but people were saying, oh, it's got to be barren, because Baron probably found out from his dad when that was going to happen. And for the record, my dad told me,

when the invasion was going to happen in the first Gulf War. And I knew before Wolf Blitzer, I watched CNN, and Wolf is like, oh, the planes are taken off, this could be it. I was like, Wolf, you're dead wrong. It's another couple of days. That's what I was thinking to myself. No polymarket back then, but I could have made bank. It could have made a lot of money.

And that was a green beret by the way that got that. And Israeli soldiers had been absolutely taken to task. And most of them are saying, well, we're all betting on it because we have this classified information. So you're saying, so I did not know that Donald Trump, Trump Jr. is involved with two of the big ones and the blockchain. So I'm not saying that there's a connection to the White House, but when your president says, well, the whole world's a casino.

Yeah. Whole world's a casino. And Barron's making money. And they're talking about the insider trading happening in the stock market when an announcement, like, we have a peace deal. We don't have a peace deal. All of this stuff is, and I go back and saying, I think the world is getting more and more fixed because it probably would have happened hundreds of years ago, but now technology is allowing

it to happen. So less than 2,000 accounts out of over 1.6 million netted nearly half a billion dollars in total profit in between 70 and 84 percent of all users lose money. I mean, that's crazy. Yeah. So why would you get involved with it? Because you think, well, it's only a dollar. I think I know the outcome. I can bet. And this is the thing that we've got to do. The greatest crime against humanity right now to me is we're creating a culture of sports addicts, gambling addicts, because they think they won on video games. They can win in the sports. They know the game.

They understand the Canadians. They know the makeup. And the reality is a lot of times it's fixed and you're just playing into a marshmallow. Well, there's the, there's the April of this year. There was the hairdryor heist. Yeah. Right? So there was a trader who noticed that Pollymarket Paris's temperature markets were settled using data from a single temperature gauge,

unmonitored roadside sensor at the airport. And so he just showed up with a blow dryer, a hair dryer to heat it up. And once it got to the level that the polymarket said it wasn't going to get to, he made it out with nearly $40,000. But when something like that happens on the polymarket, do they refund money? Because there's nothing that says it couldn't get to that temperature by way of a hairdryer. I mean, the way it's implied is that insider information is a nuisance as opposed to a crime.

Yeah. You talk about Phil Mickelson, they say his bet up to a billion dollars over his career, $1 billion. What? Talk about Phil Milkinson. They just came out, said up to $1 billion. He bet on the Ryder Cup. Pete Rose isn't in the Hall of Fame.

Phil Milliken still golfing. How is that possible? So as a golfer, he was betting on golf that he was playing in? Allegedly he's bet on the Ryder Cup. And when he switched clubs and played with Tiger Woods on the Ryder Cup, I don't know if you remember this. He moved to Calloway. Calloway bailed out of his gambling bill.

His first shot, he not only shanked it, he shanked it over the fence, and Tiger Woods wouldn't talk to him for the week because he was playing new and new clubs. That's the mentality you get caught up. It's one of the most addictive things that we can have is gambling, and once you're into it, the endorphins is all about what you're betting on. And the reality is Vegas was a sandlot until people realized gamblers are losers. But the Well, what was the sand lot?

Now they've got palaces and they've got, you know, many, many, uh, Eiffel towers. How's that possible? Because most people go down there, lose. Yeah. No,

that's why I, when I go to Vegas, I don't, I don't, I mean, I, I'll play a couple of hands, but I'd much prefer to go to,

go to a pool party and, and go to a great restaurant. Like, that's why I like to go. Now I want to go for sports. I always look at saying, if you want a thousand bucks, you're really lucky. It's not going to change your life.

You lose a thousand. and you're going to be angry at yourself for the rest of your life. Yeah. When you get involved in gambling addictions, that's the issue. So if you had to advise Polly Market on how to clean up their act or how to, I don't know, be more responsible. What would you say? Should they give up on the gambling, on the politics thing? Well, I think you'd have to give up on war.

You'd have to give up politics. You'd have to give up where one person can make a decision that influences it. And I'd also say that has to carry all the way into insider trading. And none of this is illegal, right? It's not illegal. The Senate has now passed a law in the state saying you can't do it. But insider trading in Congress is not a crime. Well, yeah, that's crazy.

And Martha Stewart goes to jail for $100,000. And you've got people that allegedly made hundreds of millions of dollars inside a trader. Yeah. And Pelosi, that's it. That's the Pelosi Fund, right? She was so successful for so long that there's entire websites to vote to whatever she trades, you trade. And people have made out like bandits. One of the most compelling charts was her against Warren Buffett.

She smoked Warren Buffett's investment capabilities by factor of four to one. So if that's not fixed, what is fixed? Well, that's what we have to have common sense. We have to say it's got to be fixed if only one-tenth of one percent is winning. Yeah, she was asked once about buying, buying credit card companies like Visa, stock in Visa, while decisions were being made in front of her

about whether or not they were going to be more regulating those credit card companies. And she looked with a complete, she looked at the people asking the questions like they were speaking in other language. How is this that this is not a problem? I'm following the rules. But that's polling markets.

That's just the same difference. The difference is now it's because of algorithms. Everybody can get involved. But she had the insider information. She knew where he was going to go. She made the investments. Or, again, was she lobbied and was there something special handed out to her to make her help the vote? And that's it.

I go back to the question. I think this world is fixed. Well, we are going to continue this conversation after the break. Tony Chapman is known for speaking his mind, and he's going to continue to do so on this very important topic as we continue 640-360 right here on the Ben Mulroney show. Some gifts say, I thought of you. The best ones help you discover more. This Mother's Day, give her something personal with Ancestry DNA. Now up to $75 off.

Explore her origins and discover the journeys that made her who she is. Save today. Give her something unforgettable, thoughtful, meaningful, uniquely hers. Give more than a gift for less. Give AncestryDNA. Visit Ancestry.ca.com.C.T.T.A.T.T.T.E.T.T.T.E. Terms Apply. Welcome back and we are continuing our conversation on Polly Market, the impact of it on all sorts of stuff. But with Tony Chapman and he sort of opened my eyes to the fact that this, I mean, this is just a, it's just a symptom of a larger problem. It is. I mean, when you can addict a population and turn them upside down and shake a few dollars out of the wallet and you know what the outcome is, you're going to make a lot of money.

So again, I talk about Declan Hill. He talks about how organized crime is working with these athletes and it's a big business. treat these athletes really well. If you're going to be, if you're part of the system, you get paid, you get paid in a suitcase full of cash. And what are they asked to do? They're asked to do things like throw a ball instead of a strike. They're asked to, uh, uh, the trainer says, guess this guy's injured, he's not going to play tonight, uh, inside information. Uh, and they're asked to throw games. So, if you're an underdog and you're an NCAA, what Declan's talking about is saying, you're going to lose anyways. Yeah. So why don't you lose more than the spread? Yeah. So it's, it's, it's, um, it's, it's, shaving points. It's shaving points.

And once you're in the system, how can you get out? Because they can go and say, well, listen, I know you're a big athlete now, but you're part of the team. You're going to stay in the team. And this is what's happening. And again, if you believe in what he's saying, existential crisis, one of the big professional sports

leagues is going to realize that so much of what we think is outcome, we're paying $500 a ticket to see if our team's going to win. And yet there's people on that floor or the coaches or the referees or that are actually focused on what their pocket's going to do versus what sports is all about. But Tony Chapman, I mean, this polymarket is, it's beyond sports. I mean, we're talking about issues of national security. And, you know, it's one thing for allegedly someone very close to the

president who might have some insider information to make a couple of thousand, a couple of grand, $100,000. But it's another thing for, hundreds of millions. Yeah. Yeah, but it's another thing for a foreign government to take advantage of this thing. I mean, you know, if they know that on the polymarket, there's a bet going on about whether or not a bomb is going to go off in a city, what's to stop a foreign actor from betting on that and then making it come true? I mean, this is a weird, this is a weird platform. You're getting to the essence of what we're talking about.

You're talking about outcome. Yeah. You're impacting outcome. So why did they go beyond sports to polymarket? Because sports is a very narrow window. You have to know sports to be willing to gambling on it. But is he going to step on the green or not? That's an easy thing.

Yes or no. It's a flip of a coin. I can do that. So next thing, you know, when you're talking about hundreds of millions and then billions of dollars going into this market, you're going to have people that are going to make decisions that are not in the national interest but in their personal interest. So bring up a really interesting point. So if an athlete knows that there is. is a bet, but whether or not they are going to wear red shoes or blue shoes on the court

or on the mound or wherever, you know, in the T-box. And they know that they can make a, I mean, that's technically not cheating, right? It's not cheating, but if you're getting paid to do that, it's illegal. Is it? I mean, you're not altering in any way the outcome of, you know, and your behavior is not altering in it. And so the next time they say we want you to take the first foul. Is that cheating? No. No, but where do you cross the integrity line? No, but no, I'm just

play this out with me because in a lot of cases, correct me if I'm wrong, on the polymarket website, you're just, you I mean, people make up these bets, right? And so you as you as an up-and-coming golfer who's having a tough time making his

ends meet because he's new to the tour and he really wants to get his tour card, but he doesn't have that that much money, he sees that he could make a lot of money if he wears one pair of shoes over another. Like, is that cheating? Well, first of all,

they wouldn't have a lot of traction on that bet. You'd have to go to a more high-profile golf. Fair enough. Okay, fair enough. And I would say that you could probably say is a gray area, but when do you stop? You say, hey, you made a couple bucks there. What about if you shank your first drive?

Or what about if you miss that first pot? And you're thinking, well, I might come out. I might not make the cut. I'm not making a lot of money. If I miss that first pot, it could be worth $20,000 to me. Is that cheating? Now, here's Declan Hill, we'll tell you.

How about if that athlete has no other source of income? Yeah. There's a moral crisis as well, but this is what organized crime pay on. The underdog is where they pray. Yeah. And they take advantage of the fact. And listen, if you got somebody in your team

that's making $100 million a year as a basketball player, and you're a trainer, and it's a compelling argument to say the trainer, Don't you deserve some of that? Yeah. So PGA, NBA, MLB, NFL, they don't have rules against this? They have rules against it, but how do you enforce it? And they're starting to study it. But when they're using now the AI to study it, they're realizing this is rampant.

Yeah. Again, I'm basing on a Ph.D. at Oxford professor that studied it. He's gone into Asia. He's gone into the boiler rooms. He sees how it works and how much money is made. And the other thing we've got to realize is a lot of that is bet is organized crime money. It's a great way to launder. Years ago, the NHL, the big six teams, two of them were basically owned by crime families

because it was a great way to launder money. But who, what would Chicago and Detroit? Really? Absolutely, that was a great way to launder money. So nowadays, you're looking in a much bigger sense. I've got all this money I've got to flush into the system. Put it through the betting system and it comes out on the other side. And whether you win or lose, it's a lot less expensive.

So again, I'm basing what he's having to say, but he says this isn't an anomaly anymore. This is rampant through sports. And what happens if it comes clean, are people going to pay $500 to see? I mean, maybe they went to wrestling. I have to believe that most people realize that that chair really didn't create blood. But I mean, when you're talking about pure sports like basketball, hockey, and baseball, I think it's going to be a real problem for these leagues. And where are they getting all their sponsorship dollars now?

Sports gambling. Who's advertising on the board? Sports gambling. Who's advertising on the network? works, sports gambling. It's this whole conversation. No, if it's not because of you, but the conversations make me want to take a shower. This is, this is kind of icky. Well, you think about how many other things we feel is you talk to the average Canadian right now and they feel it's fixed. The upper part of the economy, 20% of the economy control, 70% of the wealth, and the breast

of us have got 4% of the wealth and somewhere in the middle is disappearing and you're going to go, it's fixed for me. Why can't I get ahead? Why are they driving around that new BMW? Why they're flaunting their wealth, and I got to choose between fuel and food in my car. So this concept of fixed and unfair, I think, is resonating in society. And I'll tell you something, there's a meme that's really starting to move, and we've got to be careful about it. It's called Eat the Rich. Yeah.

And Eat the Rich is all about their, they've set it up for them and on our pocketbooks. And I tell you that that psychology is really where we see the underpinning and undermining a society. So do you think that it's been smart that by and large in Canada, polymarket is not, is not permitted? Because Ontario and the OSC said you're not allowed to do it. What? You think people can get around it?

I mean, with the VPN? Can you get around the VPN and Bitcoin? Technology. It's like telling kids you can't use AI. The big debate in right now is we're going to tell the kids they can't use social media and AI. I mean, let's focus on some real problems. The real problem is, I think, we're creating a culture of gamblers in this country.

And unless I'm wrong, the reason why Vegas is so posh is because more often than not, the average gambler loses. And that's what we're creating. It's another way to get after-tax dollars out of people, as is, you know, cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis. And this is another one. And I'm worried that more than anything else that these kids are growing up thinking their Hail Mary is going to be betting on the next outcome. And if that's fixed, that's even reducing their odds. I personally think that if we are going to allow these things which are addictive, and they can be, and they can be negative, I'm absolutely sure that there are ways to do so positively and in a positive way. If you like to gamble, I'm sure there are ways to do this.

Not my thing. But if the taxes that we collect, a portion of that has to go into mental health supports. Well, and probably lung cancer too, because we make a lot of taxes and cigarettes. But it's not the point is there's some things that we should be doing as a society to say that's not in our long-term interest. Yeah. Go to OLG and see how much they'll offer you for the first-time gambler. $300 they'll match if you're casino dollars. Oh, really?

Yeah. Now, how can you possibly give somebody $300 gift if you put in $300? Is it because your odds of winning are good or your odds of losing or good? I mean, it's common sense. People are going to realize gambling is not something the average person wins at. But we're creating that because it's another way for the good. government to get are after tax dollars. You know, like I said, Tony, most of the time I, I learned something new every time I talk to you.

I kind of liked living in the dark on this one before. I'm not, I'm not liking seeing, like you've, I don't think I can unring this bell for me now. I, you know what? When I listen, Declan Hill on chat of the matters, when I listened to that podcast and I interviewed him, I went, wow. Yeah. I love the Raptors. I love the Montreal Canadians.

I grew up in Montreal. I love the Habs. I want to know that everybody in the ice is playing with the intent. and winning the game. And even if the thought if somebody was willing to tank it because they're going to put money into their hockey bag

versus what that blue-blanc rouge is all about, it's disappointing. But when you listen to me, makes it a compelling argument. There's so much money involved that a lot of people, it's hard to resist. Tony Chapman, thank you very much. Always a pleasure.