Prediction markets, like Kalshi and Polymarket, expand gambling way beyond sports to take bets on future events ranging from geopolitical crises to the outcomes of democratic elections and the ousting of dictators. But do prediction markets actually result in reliable predictions? And how useful is the knowledge they generate about the future? And how well do they perform relative to other structured thought experiments, such as judgemental forecasting, pre-mortems, and delphi studies?

This session will dive into the booming world of prediction markets to uncover their hidden mechanisms and underpinning logic. It is then demonstrated how these principles can be adapted to other needs beyond geopolitical games – especially in the service of organizational strategy. The session will begin by revisiting and updating Matthew's previous talks at DTS on wargames (2025), innovation forecasting (2023), and strategist lifecycle (2024).