Ep. 131: Prime Suspects - May 5, 2026

Welcome to Prime Suspects. Alongside Adam Bjorn and Prime Sports co-founder Joe Brennan Jr., I'm your host, Matt Landon. All right, the Kentucky Derby is in the books. Certain prediction market workarounds are just getting started, and the NBA and NHL playoffs keep on rolling. Adam, when we last spoke, you had a game plan for the ages lined up at Churchill Downs.

Based on the hat, looks like it lived up to the expectation. Go ahead and take us inside your experience from Golden Tempo chasing down Renegade in the final strides to the weekend overall. So the weekend overall was great results. Those that are also listened to the pushing the odds got the um chocolate wrapper winner, which I gave three horses last week, which included Golden Tempo. So all in all a great result.

I mean Kentucky is a experience, did Oak stay in the Sports Illustrated Club, which was a new one recently. Met up with my new partner in horse racing, Jason Wirth. I spoke about the horses. Obviously he was very upset having an autoaligle get into the oaks and then get scratched the morning of the oaks. So he wasn't in the best of moods for having a chat, but

You know, that's racing and it's understandable. You get a chance to take your horse to the World Series for the especially for the girls. To have that happen race day morning is is a tough pill to swallow. Again, Oaks Day literally on the dirt.

sat rail side, could feel the dirt pumping up, the horses coming past I mean, the last few years I've done different experiences, tried different areas, literally buy the tickets the day before or the morning of same Kentucky Derby. I ended up near the starting gates. Plenty of mint juleps had

Oaks lilies on the Fridays. But yeah, just in general, it's my domain. You know, outside of Breeders Cup. I mean, I need to do the Masters on a Sunday or at least the week of it. And the results fell. Renegade, clearly the best horse. I mean, I I only just watched the replay this morning. He got hammered at the start. He was obviously out of breath by the time he got to the end of it. And Golden Tempo, I mean, he was like, Mind that bird.

15, 20, 30 lengths behind coming around the top straight. If you were watching that real time and just no hope, he felt like he was no hope. But obviously the brothers, the Ortiz brothers ran one two. But yeah, all in all, great great result, which at the end of the day is the name of the game, not the process, Joe, right? The result, and we got the result. And now on to the Preakness and the Belmont, which

I highly doubt any of these horses, Golden Tempo, Renegade, run back in the Preakness. That was a tough race. There was a lot of bumping and whatnot. And then they'll sort of warm up for the the shortened Belmont for the last year.

And Joe, let's bring you into the fold as well from Cherie DeVaux's historic win as the first female trainer to capture the run for the roses. To an emotional moment on NBC to the true underdog story with Golden Tempo going off as a twenty three to one long shot. What did you make of this year's derby and the surrounding storylines?

Uh, the coverage is too long. Can we just cut to the racing, please? But beyond that, I think the biggest drama for me we're not gonna like this because we're never mentioned the words prediction markets. is prior to the the racing was the uh what was going on with prediction markets or not going on with prediction markets and Churchill Downs, you know, Calci and company were warned off.

by Churchill Downs not to do contracts on this race. Calci never did. Polymarket did for a short while and that stopped. I think all of this is very interesting. Like this is the biggest sporting event on the American calendar. that those both of those exchanges just declined to even participate in, which as a side note, I don't think is particularly good for racing. I think racing would definitely benefit with, you know, wider access, more awareness and with the hot

New destinations being involved in it. But beyond that, it's looking at more of the behind the scenes stuff is why? Why of all the events did the prediction markets stay away from this one? And it's interesting because, you know, when you consider that the thing that racing has in its favor is the Interstate Horse Racing Act.

nineteen seventy eight. You know, so you have a federal law that permits off track wagering, uh, and that governs it. The interesting thing about it though, when you start to get into the details is is that It has to be opted in and approved by the different racing commissions, state racing commission.

So it's not like there's a federal regulatory structure of this, that it is a federal permission structure. And then integrated into that are the different state regulators either saying yay or nay, allowing their states to opt into this. So it was interesting that they backed off something that had that type of structure. And I wonder how that may be raised at some future point here as we're now moving into the tough season for those guys when it comes to the courts.

The other thing is this. It's you know, I find myself having a kind of like angel how many angels on the head of a pin kind of argument in that, you know, what what was it that the prediction markets respected here? Was it it that it's a federal law so they just furred to a A federal law because they are also created and permitted under a federal system. If they do that,

Okay, well, what made this distinct from any other sporting event? And I think it comes down to like, well, they you know, Calci and and Polymarket and the others, they could have just said, like, well, we're not taking wagers. We're offering prediction contracts. Why Here did they respect the state authorities, respect the federal law in ways that they are not respecting the states when it comes to sports betting. You know, and I think that's a difficulty that they may have.

and try to explain the difference between right now you well you already saw Calci's lawyer struggling in front of the Massachusetts uh Supreme Court in explaining the difference between swaps and sports betting. I think you're you're gonna have a very difficult time here now doing the same when it comes to why they respected

this law, why they respected the wishes of Churchill and others when they didn't the others. So that I think, you know, for me being the political regulatory nerd played out more than, you know, okay, gold ratio coming from like way back another time zone away to win this one. Obviously made for a very dramatic finish, but I think uh in and behind this. There's a lot of really interesting stuff that I think may be brought up uh in additional court filings as we go forward.

Adam, I'd like to follow up with you to that end because you might not have Joe's political and regulatory chops in this space. Very few people do, but you have been around it on both sides of the counter for several decades. So to that end, before we pivot to our next segment where production markets are refusing to give ground, as we've seen in many cases, why do you think they might have stood down when it came to all things related to the Kentucky Derby?

Uh I mean it was a very surprising one. I expected her to put it up there, slap it on front like the rest of them. So no real idea as to why they took a step back here. Oddly enough, again, as Joe said, Polymarket put it up and then pulled it down. Like was that a legal A manoeuv of, you know, their in house team saying, All right, there's something that they've found that should stay away from this.

I think Joe maybe hit the nail on the head with the federal aspect of it. They've been trying to hide behind the federal aspect versus a state. So do they not want to mess around in that, you know, domain? But I mean, on top of the excitement of the races and whatnot, there's always these underlying things in the US right now. And I know we're gonna get into another one shortly, but for me it's just fun to watch.

I mean, you know, seeing the headlines, seeing what they're doing. And for us as a very small fish in the pond, just concentrating on what we're doing, pushing forward. Kentucky, again, was a state that Prime is live in.

So I got to actually do a little bit of business development, picking out players, having conversations, getting sign ups and things like that. So yeah, while all these things sort of happen in the background, we're concentrating on pushing forward. But I think this one's a real interesting one and Maybe them not selling contracts bites'em in the arse down the road somewhere.

By the way, a quick note on Adam's videos and photos from the Derby this past weekend. I thought like if this was like you know, looking at the seats that he had, where he was in the grandstand, if Adam's Marketing plan for Prime Sports Kentucky is like get the best seats in a box.

and Churchill Downs and do, you know, grip and grin retail meaning potential high limit betters on a retail basis in person. I say like, yeah, spend the dollars. That looked great. I would have given anything to be right there.

And before we move right along with this week's episode of All Things Prediction Markets, Adam, let's check in with you for a quick postseason pulse check. How much of a slam dunk would it be that the Sixers knocking off the Celtics would have gone down as your biggest result over the past week across the NBA and NHL playoffs?

Ali Loop layup dunk like uh when I actually released the Philly as a day to play on the moneyline for that game seven and had no idea about the scores until someone messaged me the next morning and said, Great result last night. And I was like, Yes, there was basketball and NHL. Because after the derby I just went pretty much straight up. Be back. Food and bed. Yeah, that was the best one. It was some good results. Tampa B going out in the NHL was another one on that side of it. But for us.

Still got the Lakers and the Cavs as the two biggest losers right now. Still alive and we're seeing early money on the Cavs in that series there as well. So

All right, well from the hardwood, the ice and the racetrack to a different kind of racetrack, S1 last week named Vanduel, its first ever sportsbook partner in the US. just ahead of this past Sunday's Miami Grand Prix. The catch. FanDuel can't legally take bets in Florida, where the Seminoles have a monopoly.

So the activation runs through Fanduel Predicts its federally regulated prediction market. Also last week Caesars locked in an F one data deal signaling a broader US F one commercial arms race. So Adam, go ahead and take us behind the scenes with F one betting in the US in terms of the growth opportunity versus the prestige play and who's best equipped to price it well, as well as how deals like this could potentially raise the cost of entry for smaller operators.

So yeah, I mean, F one was probably one of the first sports I vet thirty years ago. I was a big F one fan growing up, back to the days of Ed and Senna, Michael Schumacher, whatnot. It then sort of died away, become this boring race where the leaders would lead and there was no passing. They took away the gas up, you know, reloading gas. Then there was tires and and stuff like that.

Has it become a massive F betting market these days? I don't think so. But it is becoming a bigger global sport and really hitting in the US, Canada. Obviously they have their Netflix series as well that's very popular. So it makes sense. It's just another sporting vertical in the space that, you know, sports books are partnering up. And FanJuels probably the logical one because behind'em they have Flutter and there's probably global partnerships there as well.

that they either do or are looking to do in some countries as well. The interesting part is the prediction markets, you know, playing that game of, well, we can't take sports bets, so now we're gonna sell contracts. And this is something that we've brought up previously that maybe if you're a a sports book operator you do all your futures and your single wages through prediction markets.

And on the parlay side you put all that stuff through the local state operated. I mean it's sort of the perfect spot for really testing out what you can and can't do, what you should do, what you won't do. And it's really showing that the state the state, legislators, regulators, I don't know which one this falls on, Joe, but don't have the teeth that they've been trying to bark with because There's been a lot of promises from Ohio, Arizona, some of these places we operate in.

And until Kentucky did that bill recently of saying if you're in prediction markets, you're not gonna be in our state in sports betting. Well, they bring so much revenue to the state, so what are they gonna do? So this is kind of one of those spots that FanJuel has said openly We're doing a partner with the sports

vertical and we're gonna use our prediction markets in a state that there is no sports betting for anyone other than Hard Rock. So how do they hide the fact that they are now a prediction market model customer acquisition piece of their puzzle? So

Joe, on your end, how much of this do you chalk up as a quirk in the sunshine state as opposed to the leagues and operators normalizing the prediction market workaround? And what do you think this could say about where leagues actually stand on prediction markets compared to their public posturing? Well, first of all, I mean, you gotta say this is consistent with FanDuel's DNA. You know, they rode the DFS model to greatness.

That was, you know, in a lot of ways, thumb in their nose at regulators and the law and things like that, and just trusting that they could make what they're doing here right now, make friends in high places. in order to, you know, kind of run interference for them and make them too big to fail or, you know, make their model fait accompli in these markets. And you know, particularly a a state like

Florida. You have to say that's a pretty big muscle move from them. Yeah, the Seminoles are not a weak opponent here. They managed to get a de facto monopoly for themselves in the regulated sports betting market. So So not like Fan Duels taking on wimps in this one. I think it's more interesting though on the leagues side of this thing. I mean we're talking about F1 here, but you see this kind of slow, cautious embrace by the leagues.

of the prediction markets. And I think this is probably entirely consistent with where the leagues would really like to see sports betting, regardless of how you want to r refer to it, terminology wise. At a federal level, regulated at the federal level. You know, for the leagues, they are much more powerful, much more influential in Washington, DC than when they get out into the different state legislatures. So I think it would be in their interest.

And also the interest of the NCAA to see all of this be regulated or at least majority regulated federally, uh because that's where they're gonna get their biggest amount of leverage. So I'm I'm not surprised by this point. Right now, obviously the great white whales, the NFL, everybody's waiting around holding their breath to see what they do. Those guys are always the smartest guys in the room. Uh I hate their guts, but you have to respect them because

they always make the smart move. And so, you know, while you see some of the early leagues, NHL, of course they NHL's always trying to get in there early because they're like the little brother, you know, trying to make themselves relevant.

You know, major league baseball, they're getting in there probably out of necessity more than anything else. But the NFL will be the last one to come to the table, but when they do, they'll be at the head of the table and you can imagine that they're they're gonna play this one for maximum leverage.

And shifting gears from this F one partnership but sticking with prediction markets, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev last week told Endgame he expects significant consolidation in data contract markets or DCMs. Which is noteworthy considering Robin Hood's share of Calci volume has dipped from about sixty percent in September to less than twenty five percent in March, added factors such as the major sports books building their own prediction markets and the upcoming Senate hearing on May twentieth.

And the land grab could be over soon. Joe, Tenev is basically calling the top of the DCM proliferation cycle. Who do you see surviving the consolidation wave? And what's the right historical analogy between post Paspo sports betting, the DFS shakeout? Or perhaps something new given how much volume runs through partner apps rather than the exchanges themselves.

I don't see his comments any different than say Nigel Eccles, the founder of FanDuel, who I think's a really smart guy. He does interesting stuff and I really respect Nigel. But like I think it was like a year or two ago he was on this podcast tour and a couple of places he

It even made headlines in Trade Press about how he said, you know, the it was over. You know, it was a duopoly, it was FanDuel and DraftKings and you know, the industry is gonna consolidate, but essentially it was over. Those were gonna be the winners. And then a year out we're talking about Calci and we're talking about polymarket far more than we talk about, you know, FanDuel. If anything, give FanDuel credit for jumping into the news cycle.

with what they're doing in if in Florida and with F1 because they kind of hijack some of their news cycle back away from the prediction markets. Here's the thing, and I I'm just gonna say it, I think the exchange part of this is the least interesting part of the business.

Okay. What you see with what Robinhood has done and and you have everybody going out and trying to get their front end partners, it's like, you know, old wine and a new bottle. They're going out and they're getting affiliates who are going to drive traffic.

But in the same way that if we really want to play out the exchange thing and we really want to play out that, oh, this is just like trading stocks and futures and blah, blah, blah, well, the players aren't really the New York Stock Exchange or the Intercontinental Exchange or you know, Nasdaq, those aren't interesting. It's who's on either side of that. It's Citadel, it's Jane Street, it's Goldman Sachs. It's a you know, so which of these businesses

are aggregating customers with their full portfolio. You know, you look at Robinhood. Why are they interesting? Why are they so powerful? Why were they accounting for so much of Calci's business? It's really simple. They had an embedded base. that were doing a lot of things. You know, prediction markets was just one more thing. You know, Calci does one thing. They process orders for prediction market trades. And so who's really interesting right now in this business?

Is it the transactional window that the prediction markets provide, you know, with buyer and seller on either side of that? Or is it the buyers and sellers? Are they the interesting parties here? So, you know, for all of his bravado about talking about Robin Hood and where their place is in the firmament and

consolidation and everything, I still think there's an awful lot to play for. And I think people ought to start looking away from the DCMs, looking away from the marketplaces, because I think that's the uninteresting part of the business. Basically it's a cash register. It's a transactional window. It's the people on either side of that that truly are the interesting parts of this business, right?

And Adam, as a trader, what do you think Robinhood pulling volume off Cauchy does to liquidity and pricing on the markets Susquehanna leaves behind? And more broadly, how could prediction market consolidation affect licensed books by either simplifying the landscape or just producing one to two well capitalized winners that are even harder to compete against?

Well I think Joe at the end of it they said the interesting pieces of this, which is, you know, who is actually on that buying side or the selling side I should say. Because A lot of the talk behind the scenes has been that the Robin Hood customers were the soft customers during the football season. So is it that the Robin Hood customers have run out of bit of liquidity because they got eaten alive, just like in many of the exchanges around the world for

the past few decades. Is that why it's slowing down? Because the amount of fish in the bowl just isn't there of what it was before. Kelchi obviously have their in house trading teams, which all of them have. And from what I'm understanding there as well, there's they're learning what the smart players are and then just leaning the whole marketing bias to where that needs to be. So

They're in generating their sports poops. They have smart traders that are ultimately moving the line internally so that they're taking the liquidity on the other side that they ultimately want based on taking the smart action. I mean, it sounds familiar, doesn't it? And then what does it end up at the end of the day?

Will it consolidate? A hundred percent because there is another, I believe, ten to twelve sort of waiting in the wings for their approval. I don't know what the latest with sport trade is and and where they're looking to move. Obviously they've been in that queue to get such a license as well. I don't know if they've sort of put a stop on approving the licenses or whatnot. But yeah, ultimately there was a gold rush, just like in sports betting, and I presume just like DFS.

Everyone come running in, hoping to get that license, get live and then sell it, make their money and get out. And those lucky enough have probably done that three or four times now. So yeah, there'll be consolidation, but I don't even know who's gonna get to the market ultimately at this point as well, or is that part kind of dried up?

For me the interesting one was always the Robin Hoods and I don't know what episode, but sometime long time ago there was a conversation about they already have the eyeballs and sports kind of falls into that window when general stock markets are closed weekends that people just well, I have a balance. Now I can trade sports on the weekend and continue my trading into losses, into wins. And now the ability to do leverage, which now gives you credit betting, is another

uh aspect of where are they going with this? Obviously FanJuel for me it was a master move doing the F one in the manner that they did doing that partnership, as Joe said, getting in the news cycle again. So I'd love to be running one of these places and playing all these fun and games and and sort of things'cause for me it's very much entertainment sitting on the outside and seeing, Okay, who's next? What's next?

So we'll see how it plays out. But yeah, hundred percent consolidation at some point. But will it be like the DraftKings fans you'll sort of top two taking eighty percent, eighty five percent of the market? Who knows? But

I always sit here in hope and and Joe's always bringing up the analogy of Yahoo, AOL, all those kind of things. So there is hope for us little guys in the fight to keep building, keep building and maybe turn it into something one day. So Just sit back, grab the popcorn and watch it all play out.

And Adam, I'll pass it back to you for a buzzer beater to take us home today with the second round underweight in the NBA and NHL playoffs. Which series will Prime Sports and Bet Chris be sweating the most based on current futures exposure?

Lakers Thunder. Never thought I'd be saying this, but cheering on a minus fourteen hundred series winner in the Thunder. Lakers money's coming a little bit in the series, but overall You know, really bad results on the conference champion and the NBA championship with the Lakers.

In the end you would have been better off just betting'em in the last series and betting them in this series and you've literally got what price they were pre the last series for the overall title and you've still got a couple of rounds to go. should they make it that far. And then the other side of it with the Celtics out, the Cavs are still decent loser in the futures. And what I'm seeing they've got about eighty two percent of the money on the series so far are coming into that one. So

That looks like the big sweat, the two sweats in the NBA. The NHL with Tampa Bay getting knocked out. It's really only Colorado that's one of the losers that's left. So we have a pretty good book on the futures. Series betting's minimal. So we'll just soldier on with that one and see how the next round plays out.

All right, with that, we'll go ahead and call it a wrap to the audience. Whichever playoff series you may or may not be sweating, thanks as always for tuning in, and we'll catch you next week. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Prime Suspect. Register for Prime Sports at PrimeSports.com and download the You can follow us on Twitter at at Joe Brennan Jr. and at You must be 21 or over to play.

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