Young Wall Street hires flock to prediction markets

• Morgan Stanley’s annual intern survey found that 25% of North American interns used a betting or prediction market app in the past year.
• Among those interns, 55% said they used more than one such platform, with Kalshi and Polymarket the top choices.
• The findings land as regulators and advocacy groups scrutinize prediction markets’ appeal to younger users and the gap with sports betting’s 21-plus age threshold.

Morgan Stanley has found that a quarter of its North American summer interns used a betting or prediction market mobile app in the past 12 months, according to the investment bank’s annual intern survey.

The poll covered more than 500 interns, many of whom are 21 years old or younger, and marked the first time the survey asked about betting and prediction market habits.

First-time question

Morgan Stanley’s equity research team runs the intern survey every year to track how the next generation of finance workers thinks about money, technology, and career priorities. This year, for the first time, it added questions on betting and prediction market use.

The results showed that 25% of respondents had used a betting or prediction market application in the previous 12 months. Among those interns, 55% said they had used more than one such app, pointing to a market concentrated around a handful of leading platforms.

Kalshi and Polymarket emerged as the two most popular choices, according to Business Insider, which reported that roughly 14% of the interns who bet specifically named Kalshi. The platform is exploring an IPO after its annualized revenue reportedly tripled to $2 billion, with sports contracts making up 89% of that volume.

Age gap concerns

The intern data lands amid growing scrutiny of prediction markets’ appeal to younger users.

A national NCPG/Harris Poll survey published in June found that 45% of American adults consider prediction markets comparable to gambling, and 84% believe the platforms should carry consumer protections similar to gambling. NCPG has separately raised concerns, through its advocacy work, about the mismatch between some prediction markets’ age rules and the stricter standards applied to sports betting.

Most US states that permit legal sports betting set the minimum wagering age at 21. Several prediction market platforms, by contrast, have allowed account holders as young as 18.

Some operators are moving toward the stricter standard. Sports-focused platform Novig relaunched nationwide in August as a federally regulated prediction market under CFTC Designated Contract Market status, requiring users to be 21 or older, three years above the 18-plus minimum most rivals use.

That federal framework has become a flashpoint of its own: the CFTC’s own proposed definition of “gaming” is being watched closely for how it could reshape which products fall under state gambling law versus federal commodities rules.

State regulators have also pushed back on the sector more broadly. Nevada’s Gaming Control Board won a temporary restraining order in January barring Polymarket from offering unlicensed event contracts in the state, later followed by a preliminary injunction, and New Mexico has sued Kalshi on similar grounds.

Wall Street pushes back

The trading habits of finance employees themselves are also drawing attention.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have both introduced restrictions on staff participation in certain prediction markets, driven partly by insider trading concerns tied to employees’ access to market-moving information.

Goldman Sachs has prohibited trading in financial and political event contracts offered by yes-or-no exchanges, while Morgan Stanley’s employee code of conduct now includes provisions covering prediction market trading among other investment activities.

In a separate research note, Morgan Stanley’s Consilient Observer team also questioned one of the sector’s central selling points: that collective market wisdom reliably beats expert forecasting.

Reviewing prediction markets alongside sports betting and stock markets, the researchers found that sophisticated polling aggregation can match or exceed prediction market accuracy in some cases, and that teams of professional forecasters have outperformed markets when their estimates are combined statistically.

The bank’s analysts have also been cutting price targets on DraftKings, citing pressure from the same prediction market operators its interns are using.

Novig’s 21-plus relaunch and Nevada’s ongoing court fight both point to a widening split in how the industry treats age and licensing, one that health advocates argue leaves younger users exposed for longer than intended.