How did Shaan Puri's bettor friend make 1% a day on Polymarket?

Shaan Puri said on Modern Wisdom that he gave a professional sports bettor $1 million and the bettor produced about 1% returns a day on prediction markets. The method is to act as the house: casual users stake $10 on parlays of 15 events hoping for a big payout, the real odds are far longer than the price offered, and the bettor takes the other side and keeps the spread.

• Puri said these bettors moved from sportsbooks to celebrity stand-ins to crypto and now to Polymarket as each edge got shut down.
• Puri said smaller quant firms now do the same thing, acting as market makers on prediction markets instead of on Wall Street.
• The panel noted that most prediction-market volume, around 98% by one estimate given, is now sports betting.

▸In their words

“And he basically started producing 1% returns every day.” Shaan Puri · at 13:39 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Modern Wisdom (2026-10-26). Read the whole episode summary →

▸More from this episode