ROLR CBO Flip Pidot on How Prediction Markets Can Keep the Action Alive Between Elections
The midterms attracted high trading volumes at prediction markets and helped boost the launch of ROLR, which went live just weeks before the elections. Gaming America sat down with Chief Business Officer Flip Pidot to discuss the launch, midterms, and how prediction markets can keep users engaged post-election.
ROLR is the prediction market platform launched by High Roller Technologies and provides users access to markets through a partnership with Crypto.com. It officially went live last month, just in time for the midterms, which Pidot described as the “Super Bowl of politics”.
“It’s been really fun to see traders interacting with the site over the last several days,” Pidot tells Gaming America over a video call on the morning after the midterms.
While he couldn’t share volume details, he said the company has been “very happy” with what it has seen so far.
“This is a very high growth phase,” Pidot says, and he believes political markets can be a key driver of attracting users even post-election.
“Our goal is to make prediction markets accessible and engaging through an intuitive customer experience, and our experience operating real-money consumer platforms provides a strong foundation for building this business,” said CEO Seth Young in a press release.
Divided Government Creates New Market Opportunities
The midterms saw some huge wagers. One Polymarket trader staked $846,000 on Republicans losing control of the House. In total, well over $1 billion was traded on election markets.
Those figures pale in comparison to sports, which regularly attract billions of dollars in daily trading volume. Much of that comes from parlays, so the actual money being risked is considerably lower.
Outside of sports and even outside high-profile elections, new political markets can be a big draw to engage users, claims Pidot.
“Now that we know we have a divided government, it introduces a number of interesting market opportunities for what’s going to happen,” Pidot says.
Pidot worked at PredictIt before joining High Roller. From this experience, he believes prediction markets can keep users who traded on the midterms engaged in new political markets.
“I worked at PredictIt in 2016 when Trump first won, and we expected a huge falloff in volume after the election,” he says. “It turned out we didn’t see it because Trump quickly turned December and January into The Apprentice-style ‘Who’s going to be in my cabinet?'”
“All these election traders became cabinet and legislative traders. So I’m likewise optimistic that with this change in the balance of power, we’ll see not a falloff from the midterms, but actually a reinvigoration.”
“Between hearings, impeachments, and new legislation, there are plenty of market opportunities. That’s an ongoing collaborative discussion between Crypto.com and us to bring traders the topics they’re going to be interested in,” he adds.
The chances of Trump being impeached jumped to as high as 83% at prediction markets following the Democrats winning control of both houses. Sen. Ted Cruz warned the President could be impeached multiple times in the next two years.
“I’m somewhat skeptical about whether they have the votes in the Senate to actually convict and remove, but I think we’re going to see a flurry of market activity at the outset of 2027 on very new priorities,” Pidot says.
Metamarkets Can Also Create Engaging Markets
The future of prediction markets remains uncertain. Crypto.com has already pulled its sports markets from eight states that have taken action against operators, including Nevada, Ohio, Arizona, Massachusetts, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, and New Jersey.
New York and Connecticut may also soon block platforms. Where markets are restricted, Pidot says ROLR is not operational.
Most experts predict that the Supreme Court will eventually rule on whether sports and election markets are acceptable under federal law.
“The ultimate use case of prediction markets would be hedging on whether Kalshi prevails in the US Supreme Court,” said prediction commentator Dustin Gouker.
However, Kalshi has said it will not offer a market on the topic. Polymarket allows users to predict whether SCOTUS will accept the case by the end of the year, but does not offer anything on the eventual ruling.
Pidot would be more than happy for ROLR to allow users to trade on the outcome.
“I love those metamarkets,” he says. “That’s a perfect opportunity for prediction markets themselves to hedge on their own existential outcome.”
Markets More Accurate and Faster Than Any Other Outlet
Speaking the morning after the midterms, Pidot had been preparing to defend prediction markets even when they got things wrong. He was pleasantly surprised that the results generally aligned with the markets, albeit with a few exceptions.
“I think this was a good validation,” he says. “The markets got it right and they got it right faster than anything else. Basically, if you were watching Polymarket or ROLR or Kalshi last night, you knew what was going to happen hours earlier than if you were watching CNN, MSNBC or The New York Times.”
It was the election markets in 2024 that propelled prediction markets into the public consciousness. Donald Trump Jr. joined Kalshi as a strategic advisor, citing the company’s ability to predict the results more accurately than polls. He has since taken up the same role at Polymarket.
“When you have financially motivated people crunching the numbers and actually putting money on the line, whether you’re involved in the markets or not, the price discovery, the Intel, the insight from these markets is better than what you get from any other kind of outlet,” Pidot added.
Pidot sits on the board of the Coalition for Political Forecasting, which “seeks to advise the policymaking community on how betting on political events can improve democratic institutions, promote economic stability, and facilitate innovative research,” according to the organization.
Geopolitical Markets Can Also Be Useful
On other subjects, markets can also provide better intelligence, says Pidot. He said ROLR will comply with regulations and refrain from listing markets that are prohibited under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), such as on war, assassination, or terrorism.
Polymarket lists many of these markets on its international platform, which have attracted insider trading scandals.
“When you have one person or several people that can control an outcome, you don’t want to introduce a perverse incentive for someone to bring about a terrible outcome,” says Pidot. “For example, a market on an assassination could encourage someone who is already inclined to assassinate to bet a million bucks that so-and-so will be assassinated.”
However, as a self-declared “maximalist,” he is open to toeing the line in what may be deemed acceptable.
“My personal position as a maximalist is that a lot of these markets do provide better intel,” says Pidot. “Questions like whether there will be a ceasefire, or whether a carrier strike group will be deployed to a certain area by a specific date, offer significant societal, national defense, and publicly useful information.”
“But that’s still a broad category we need to segregate for now. Eventually, maybe we tiptoe into it and consider which subcategories in geopolitics and military conflict are defensible and useful without introducing perverse incentives. But for now, things like terrorism and assassination—these ‘death markets’—are squarely beyond the pale,” he adds.
For now, ROLR will collaborate with Crypto.com on bringing new markets to the platform that can engage users on hot political topics, as well as sports. The latter still accounts for the majority of trading on prediction markets, but Pidot is more excited about how users can be engaged on a wide range of subjects.
The midterms showed Americans have a strong appetite for trading on elections, and the challenge for ROLR is to keep the momentum rolling.
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