Want to make a quick $100 right now? Head to Polymarket or Kalshi and place a large amount of money on one of the most predictable wagers imaginable: 84 cents gets you a dollar for predicting the wedding venue of one of the most wildly famous couples in America, who for months have been reportedly set to wed this Friday at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Over $2 million has reportedly already been pumped into that risk-free wager.
Oh — it looks like the wedding has begun. So let’s look around the floor of… Madison Square Garden (that’s right, cha-ching, everyone!) to see which of the many Swift wedding-related predictions are going to pay out on some share of the reported over $5 million on Kalshi riding on this most ubiquitous pop-culture moment.
There’s Jason Kelce, looking a lot like a groomsman — as of Tuesday, he was favored for the honor at 94 percent. Austin Swift and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes also made the shortlist of groomsmen. On the bridesmaid side, Swift’s childhood best friend from Pennsylvania, Abigail Anderson Berard, holds the lead at 85 percent.
In an event this size, with this many betting options, the real value is in the long shots. Look to the lower-probability markets — like the bridesmaid odds beyond the frontrunner — which tend to feel oversold relative to the reporting. That’s exactly where the money’s being made.
Some call betting on a beloved couple’s wedding day — and their life together afterward — lewd and grotesque, and they’re not wrong. Will she get pregnant within a year? Will she miscarry? Will it end in divorce? Place your bets. But maybe don’t tell your friends if you win money on it. Actually, perhaps don’t tell them at all.
Then there’s the guest list — or rather, the betting market on who showed up on West 31st Street in 100-degree heat for the big day. Selena Gomez, Justin Trudeau, Este Haim (recently spotted at MSG with Swift, making her a dicey bridesmaid pick for the adventurous bettor) — all of these names are wagers waiting to be cashed in, each one a shot at a payout the moment they’re spotted. And why wouldn’t they show? It’s hot as hell out there, but this is the wedding of the year, if not the decade.
Notably, the money being spent by prediction-market punters — many of them Swifties, many of them women, per reports — amounts to a sizable share of the wedding’s estimated $25 million price tag. That whiplash-inducing sum covers multi-day arena rental, top-tier security, and several headline performers. For comparison, the average American wedding costs around $36,000.
If the couple is spending that much, the real gamble might be for any guest who shows up empty-handed to a “no gifts” event. What’s a person supposed to do in that situation?
Now that dinner’s been served, you may be wondering how any of this actually gets settled at such a secretive, private event. (When do I get my Trudeau money?) It depends on where the bet was placed and whether the outcome is contested. On Kalshi, an internal team verifies outcomes against source reporting — typically within 12 hours of confirmation — with payouts landing about three hours after that; winners take $1 per winning share. On Polymarket, the process starts once the market closes and an approved proposer submits a result. A challenge window of a couple of hours follows, and if unchallenged, winners are paid out in about two hours. Disputes escalate to token-holder voting, which can stretch the process for days.
So how do they know Trudeau was actually there? Funny to be asking a reporter, because journalism is exactly what’s doing the verifying. The markets lean on consensus from major outlets — The New York Times, the Associated Press, network news — the same way elections get called. The moment an eagle-eyed reporter clocks Trudeau in the room, the wheels start turning on the markets that, increasingly, seem to be running everything.
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