Priced for War

On the evening of Friday, February 27, 2026, a Polymarket board listed the dates on which the United States might strike Iran. Forty-five had already expired worthless, and the line for the next day traded at about a dime. A few hours later, American and Israeli aircraft struck, and the line went to 100.

That gap, between a confident-looking number and what the world went on to do, is where this book lives. Was the crowd wrong? Did some of the people buying those dimes already know what was coming? Who decided afterward what the contracts were worth? And why should anyone who never opens a trading app care what strangers paid for a piece of digital paper on a war?

Priced for War follows prediction markets through the year they became one of the places where the country watched itself think. It covers the Iran strike board and the fine print on a death, the oil and gasoline contracts, the fight over who would chair the Federal Reserve and whether it would raise rates, the inflation report as a coin toss, and the midterm board, with the polls and pundits it was measured against. It examines whales, wash trades and thin order books, the patchwork of state regulators against the federal commission, and what happens when the person across the table from you knows more than you do.

Written for general readers, traders and the simply curious, the book explains how Kalshi and Polymarket actually work, what the public blockchain record can and cannot reveal, and how to read the odds without getting burned.

The price is not the future. This book shows you what it is.