预测市场在美国迎来了一个爆发式的选举周期，中期选举的交易额超过14亿美元，Kalshi和Polymarket等平台越来越多地与传统民调一同出现。
Prediction markets are having a breakout election cycle in the U.S., with more than $1.4 billion US traded on midterm races and platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket increasingly appearing alongside traditional polling.
“这将是预测市场在重大选举周期中真正走向主流的第一年，”NEXTPredict.io新兴垂直业务负责人瓦莱丽·克罗斯（Valerie Cross）表示。
"This will be the first year the prediction markets are really mainstream for a major election cycle," said Valerie Cross, head of emerging verticals at NEXTPredict.io.
预测市场在美国已变得如此流行，以至于此类最大平台Kalshi的首席执行官塔雷克·曼苏尔（Tarek Mansour）将中期选举称为“预测市场选举”。Kalshi和Polymarket等平台允许用户对现实世界事件的发生概率进行押注，包括中期选举谁将获胜、投票率数字，甚至候选人在演讲中可能说什么。
Prediction markets have become so popular in the U.S. that Tarek Mansour, CEO of Kalshi, the largest platform of its kind, is calling the midterms "the prediction market election." Platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket allow users to wager on the likelihood of real-world events, including who will win in the midterms, turnout numbers and even what a candidate might say in a speech.
据CNN报道，截至10月23日，中期选举预测市场的交易额已超过14亿美元。
According to CNN, more than $1.4 billion US has been traded on midterm election prediction markets as of Oct. 23.
利用公开披露数据研究预测市场的反腐败数据集体（ACDC）的一份报告称，这些平台上的中期选举市场数量现在是2024年的16倍。
A report from the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC), which examines prediction markets using publicly disclosed data, says there are now 16 times as many midterm markets on these platforms as there were in 2024.
“就以这种方式受到监管、面向公众开放、且不设投注上限的预测市场而言，这是美国政治史上规模最大的一次实验，”ACDC联合创始人大卫·萨科尼（David Szakonyi）表示。
"This is the biggest experiment that we ever had in American politics when it comes to prediction markets that are regulated in this way, that are open to the general public, that don't have caps on betting," said David Szakonyi, co-founder of ACDC.
萨科尼将这些平台的增长归因于美国联邦上诉法院2024年的一项裁决，该裁决允许Kalshi在其平台上开展选举投注，而这在加拿大是非法的。
Szakonyi attributes the growth of these platforms to a U.S. appeals court ruling in 2024 that cleared Kalshi to allow election betting on its platform, something that is illegal in Canada.
克罗斯还指出，CNN、CNBC和福克斯等媒体机构近期与Kalshi达成的数据共享合作伙伴关系，以及Polymarket与道琼斯和Substack的合作伙伴关系。
Cross also points to recent data-sharing partnerships between media organizations such as CNN, CNBC and Fox and Kalshi, as well as partnerships between Polymarket and Dow Jones and Substack.
“我们开始在选举报道中看到赔率。我认为随着选举日临近，这种情况会更多。”民调与预测市场但这是否意味着预测市场已超越民调？随着选举预测市场在本轮选举周期中变得显眼，民调与预测市场结果之间的分歧已扩大。
"We're starting to see the odds alongside election coverage. I think we'll see that more leading up to election day." Polls versus prediction-markets But does that mean prediction markets have overtaken polling? The divide between polling and prediction-market outcomes has grown as election prediction markets have become prominent in this election cycle.
哥伦比亚大学经济学家拉吉夫·塞西（Rajiv Sethi）研究这些市场已逾20年，他表示，就预测市场及其准确性而言，“好坏参半”。尽管预测市场在2024年总统大选当晚预测特朗普获胜，但塞西称，在国会议员等下层选票竞争中，预测市场准确度较低。
Rajiv Sethi, an economist at Columbia University who's studied these markets for more than 20 years, said that when it comes to prediction markets and their accuracy "it's a mixed bag." Despite predicting Trump as the winner of the 2024 presidential election on election night, Sethi said prediction markets were less accurate when it came to down-ballot races.
这些中期选举将决定特朗普剩余总统任期内谁控制美国国会 随着美国中期选举临近，民主党声势大涨。以下数据让特朗普的共和党感到恐慌“民调确实是做预测的主要成分，即使是预测市场上的交易者也是如此，”他说。“民调变动，市场就变动。只是市场也可能因其他因素变动，也可能在没有民调的情况下变动。”克罗斯同意民调和预测市场服务于不同目的。
These midterm races will decide who controls U.S. Congress for the rest of Trump's presidency The Democrats are surging as the U.S. midterms near. Here's the data that has Trump's Republicans spooked "Polls are really the principal ingredient for making forecasts, even for traders on prediction markets," he said. "When the polls move, the markets move. It's just that the markets can also move based on other factors and they can move in the absence of polls." Cross agrees that polling and prediction markets serve different purposes.
“它们更像是谁将赢得选举这一隐含概率的实时晴雨表。而民调本质上很快就会过时，更多只是选民表示将怎么做的某一时间点的快照。”塑造公众认知据Kalshi称，该网站“预计将成为本选举季访问量最大的平台之一”，就中期选举市场而言，观看者数量是交易者的五倍。
"They're more of a real time barometer of the implied probability of who's going to win the election. Whereas polls, by nature, they become outdated quickly. And it's more of just a snapshot in time of what voters say they're going to do." Shaping public perception According to Kalshi, the site "is expected to be one of the most visited platforms this election season" and when it comes to midterms markets, viewers outnumber traders five to one.
由布伦南司法中心资助的一项最新研究发现，美国选民受预测市场影响，并转向这些市场获取关于中期选举的信息，这反映了上述情况。
That is reflected in a recent study funded by the Brennan Center for Justice that found U.S. voters are influenced by prediction markets and are turning to them for information about the midterms.
这项研究于2026年9月21日进行，调查了1,994名美国注册选民，发现候选人在Kalshi平台上的获胜赔率越高，选民就越倾向于认为该候选人当选的可能性大。
The study, conducted on Sept. 21, 2026, with 1,994 registered U.S. voters, found that the higher a candidate's odds of winning on Kalshi, the more likely voters were to view that candidate as electable.
研究还发现，尽管这些市场具有影响力，但80%的美国选民表示希望对预测市场实施更严格的监管或直接予以禁止。
It also found that, despite their influence, 80 per cent of U.S voters said they wanted prediction markets to be more tightly regulated or banned outright.
萨科尼说：“脆弱性在于，在许多这类市场中，实际下注的人并不多。”
"The vulnerability there is that in many of these markets, there actually aren't that many people who are betting," Szakonyi said.
他的ACDC报告考察了Polymarket、Polymarket US和Kalshi上与2026年中期选举相关的21,811个市场，发现许多市场交易稀少。大多数押注集中在少数几场竞争中，包括得克萨斯州、缅因州、密歇根州和南卡罗来纳州的参议院竞选，以及肯塔基州第4国会选区的竞选。这些竞选吸引的资金是其他许多竞选的数倍。萨科尼表示，交易稀少的市场可靠性可能较低。
His ACDC report examined 21,811 markets related to the 2026 midterm elections on Polymarket, Polymarket US and Kalshi and found that many were thinly traded. Most wagers were concentrated on a small number of races, including Senate contests in Texas, Maine, Michigan and South Carolina, as well as Kentucky's 4th Congressional District. Those races attracted several times more money than many others. Szakonyi said thinly traded markets can be less reliable.
“基本上任何人都可以花100美元或1,000美元，在一个面向公众的网站上改变赔率，制造出候选人实际表现更好或更差的假象。” 内幕交易 萨科尼描述的另一类选举押注是“可知市场”。这些包括押注候选人是否会参选或公开露面，他说这会使市场特别容易受到内幕交易的影响。
"Basically anybody can spend $100 or $1,000 and shift the odds on a public-facing website and create the impression that a candidate is doing better or worse in reality." Insider trading Another category of election wagers is what Szakonyi describes as a "knowable market." These include bets on whether a candidate will enter a race or make a public appearance, which he says can make the markets especially vulnerable to insider trading.
“所有这些都反映了候选人的策略或内部讨论，可能存在知情人士利用这些信息为自己牟利。” 今年已经发生过类似情况，Kalshi禁止并罚款了三名美国政治候选人——埃泽基尔·恩里克斯、马特·克莱因和马克·莫兰——因为他们在得克萨斯州、明尼苏达州和弗吉尼亚州的竞选中对自己的竞选下注。
"All of these things reflect candidate strategy or internal discussions of which there could be an insider that could exploit that information and then make money for themselves." Already this year, Kalshi banned and fined three U.S. political candidates — Ezekiel Enriquez, Matt Klein and Mark Moran — for placing wagers on their own races in Texas, Minnesota and Virginia.
该行业还与美国州政府就预测市场是否应继续被视为由联邦商品期货交易委员会监管的金融服务，还是受州监管的赌博平台，陷入法律纠纷。萨科尼表示，该问题明年可能上诉至最高法院。
The industry is also involved in legal battles with U.S. state governments over whether prediction markets should continue to be treated as financial services regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission or as gambling platforms subject to state regulation. Szakonyi said the issue could reach the Supreme Court next year.
他说，本轮选举周期将提供一个更大的数据集，用于衡量预测市场的准确性及其可能对选举公正性产生的影响。
He said this election cycle will provide a much larger set of data on how accurate prediction markets are and what impact they may have on election integrity.
“我们实际上是在实时进行这场实验。没有人知道，过去几个月预测市场信息充斥环境是好事还是坏事，但它们已经在某种程度上融入了美国社会。”尽管关于其准确性和更广泛影响的争论仍在继续，但克罗斯表示，毫无疑问，这些市场将影响选民。
"We're kind of living this experiment in real time. No one knows whether or not the last couple of months of prediction market information saturating the environment has been a good thing or a bad thing, but they've already kind of ingratiated themselves in American society." Despite the debate over their accuracy and broader impact, Cross said there's no doubt these markets will impact voters.
“人们对选举交易的需求非常大，”她说，“要把这只精灵重新装回瓶子里，恐怕相当困难。”
"There's such a huge demand for trading on elections," she said "It would be pretty hard to put the genie back in the bottle."