I gamble on politics and events. DMs open if you want to discuss markets.
Joined March 2020
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Also LeBron if you deny me I will feel psychic pain.
LeBron James and the Last Decision
-- LONG THREAD WARNING--
Since we're at the eve of the decision, I figured I would summarize my thinking on this market. It's a pretty difficult one! It's very easy for someone to zero in on one or two points and form that as the single basis for the reason LeBron would pick team A or team B. My goal is not to push people to one option or the other, but just to get my thoughts out there and plant my flag before the announcement drops. I can hopefully look smart, but more likely to end up looking dumb because it does feel very open-ended.
TL;DR I believe LeBron James is most likely to select the Miami Heat.
Below is my long thread explaining, in narrative form, how I arrived at this. I feel Miami satisfies enough clusters of what he needs. But it is not a recommendation to buy or bet Miami at a particular price point -- being most likely might only mean 35%? 40%? I do not know if anyone can get more than 50% confident on a particular option here without inside knowledge. It's interesting to me that Kalshi has surfaced Miami as the leader versus more conventional wisdom about Cleveland or Golden State. If we get it right, it's a cool moment for prediction markets. Hopefully it doesn't mean insider trading but I digress.
Also not me slamming the book buying tons of shares in the 40s and 50s. Unsure who that is or if they know more, I think the decision is probably kept tight enough that there's no inside info ... I don't think any winner would truly surprise me short of Mystery Team XYZ. You can form a case for any winner after-the-fact like "of course he chose Cleveland, its home!" "of course he chose Golden State, its steph! its close!" etc. Uncertainty is very high.
Thread below.
Over the course of October from looking at the early voting data and the trajectory of the generic ballot, I became convinced Democrats were heading for a wave as big as 1958, 1974, and 1982.
We hadn't seen Democrats get large turnout advantages over Republicans in the 10 years of Trump on the scene -- even in 2018, Reps turned out more by party reg % of their voters in key states like Florida to blunt the effects of persuasion.
Early voting and opinion polling validated that a set of young Republican voters were opting out of the election while an endless deluge of low propensity Democratic voters would show up any day any time in early voting. It didn't make sense to me that this trend would stop on election Day, which is usually when lowest propensity voters + habitual eday voters (these happen to be a lot of Republicans!) show up.
Early voting demonstrated that, in nearly every state (Iowa exempted), Democrats had the best turnout adjusted for gaps in total registration of any time going back to 2000. And it wasn't small, the gulf was enormous in NC, FL, TX, KS, NV, etc.
The only piece of the puzzle left to solve was whether the Red Surge would arrive on election day. Very early and very clearly it didn't.
From that point on I sent 100% of my portfolio into Senate bets, control bets, governor bets across the map. Particularly in Texas, where the wave effects were going to be highest -- 2nd youngest state and majority non white. Polling data was very likely to understate Democrats everywhere on the map but it would be amplified where the most unlikely voters were concentrated -- younger or minority areas -- because polls would have considered them very unlikely to vote in a midterm election.
I allocated money into the Bible belt states based on the historic turnout of black voters everywhere for a midterm, but particularly in the deep South. Rural malaise and peak black turnout with strong black candidates made them good value relative to their price.
Don't listen to pablum that early voting tells you nothing.
Net return across sites was $1.5MM.
The losses:
- Florida governor (-150k). This state is unbelievable. Jolly was still good value based on R+9 electorate, but losing by a point is frustrating. Still better than paying 80c for Donalds IMO.
- Nebraska Senate (-30k). On paper this should have worked; the polling data was always tight and the electorate wasn't going to be very R. But perhaps it was because Osborne WASN'T a Democrat that he didn't get the "vote blue no matter who" jump everyone else did.
The problem with holding any Reps right now is that we have a good amount of evidence with turnout reports + early voting that Republicans are facing a historic turnout gap and a historic gap on persuasion (06 is D+18, polls for now are D+20 to D+25). We haven't seen any votes counted, but I think it is fair that people might consider some once-unthinkable outcomes here.
In 2006 there was not a large differential turnout gap to this degree.
Lance Uppercut retweeted
I'm at the point where if there's a big e-day surge I may just assume it's Democrats
The problem with holding any Reps right now is that we have a good amount of evidence with turnout reports + early voting that Republicans are facing a historic turnout gap and a historic gap on persuasion (06 is D+18, polls for now are D+20 to D+25). We haven't seen any votes counted, but I think it is fair that people might consider some once-unthinkable outcomes here.
In 2006 there was not a large differential turnout gap to this degree.
They promised a GOP surge on Election Day, and we got one -- but they are all busy betting on Kalshi instead of voting so far. Still time left in the day.
This is like one of those sportsbooks tweets of a high roller placing a giant bet on Chiefs ML and the team ends up scoring 3 pts against the Seahawks in a blowout loss.
New — Someone bet $500,000 on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to win re-election, days after a separate $500,000 bet for him over Gina Hinojosa (D). Both were institutional bets on Kalshi. Unclear if related. Latest came with Abbott at 64% to win. (flagged by @betint_ai)
My palms start sweating and my heart palpitates when I hover the cursor over buying Republican shares on Kalshi right now. Really scary stuff.
Lombardo is some mythical figure to this model, surviving even the unlikely (?) D+14 outcome and holding the governorship. America's Governor, he should be running for president.
Lance Uppercut retweeted
New — Someone bet $500,000 on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to win re-election, days after a separate $500,000 bet for him over Gina Hinojosa (D). Both were institutional bets on Kalshi. Unclear if related. Latest came with Abbott at 64% to win. (flagged by @betint_ai)
Lance Uppercut retweeted
Here is a piece written on a key member of our team ;) in @nytimes ! Thanks to @stuartathompson for a thoughtful, well-researched, and carefully written article. Online now and made Sunday Business print version front page! nytimes.com/2026/10/29/techn…
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Way too many people are arguing what the Fed will do by explaining how they USED TO work.
They don’t work that way anymore and now a big “family fight” at the Fed is underway. The repost below is a good read and needs to be understood.
A 35% to 40% probably of a hike is justified. Sure they might raise rates this week, but there is going to be tension and lots of dissents. No hike this week and 50 might be on the table for September.
—-
Years of Trump bashing the Fed has changed them.
Before everything revolved around the Chair and what they wanted. That is why Wall Street parsed every word and framed every decision around the Chair, their personality and what they believed. The other 11 voters did not matter and were expected to go along with the Chair.
This is not the case anymore.
The Fed is now like the Supreme Court, all independent voters and can out vote the Chair. And there is no more Forward Guidance (signaling what they are going to do.) this is why the probability of a hike tomorrow is 35% to 40%, the Chair could get outvoted and we have no “guidance” either way.
——
All of these changes are positive, and should be applauded.
The root of many of the Fed’s problems were centered in too much power vested to one person (causing terrible “groupthink”). Additionally, forward guidance that amounted to promises of future moves encouraged too much speculation and leverage among financial institutions as they perceived lower risks creating moral hazards (Fed bailouts for bad decisions.).
These practices had to end.
In the meantime many of the hot takes about the Fed here should be filed under “historical viewpoints” and not “current monetary policy.”
Lance Uppercut retweeted
MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR RINSE: Full single-post summary for people with normal sleep schedules of the most insane rinsing of bond bots I've seen firsthand, in which PM bonders appear to have lost 7 figures🤯
Scene: Last MLB game of the night (Giants vs Angels) bottom of the 10th inning tied 6-6. The time is ~1:15am EDT
- With the bases loaded, Devers hits what is normally a ground rule double. The initial final score shown is an 8-6 Giants win (due to an official MLB scorer error). Video below in thread
- Over 13.5 runs, Giants -1.5, and Giants team total o7.5 runs bond to 99c thanks to bots
- MLB rules state that a walk off ground rule double cannot score multiple runs and in this scenario counts as a single instead of a double
- People start to realize this and insane action comes in to unbond the above markets. Prices go absolutely haywire, touching 1c and 99c multiple times
- Kalshi closes and settles the totals & team totals markets while at least one (if not all) of the listed source agencies (MLB / Fox Sports / ESPN) still showed the final score as 8-6. PolyUS does the same for settlement of Giants -1.5
- However, the Kalshi spread (run line) markets remained open longer. Source agencies had then changed the final score to be 7-6. Market volume on the spread balloons from under 12,000 to 5 million (!) between the start of the bottom of the 10th inning and final market settlement
- Despite Kalshi settling the total as over 13.5 based on an 8-6 final score, per their CFTC rules, the spread must now settle Angels +1.5 as a win, and it does
- PolyInt settles Angels +1.5 as a win as well, rinsing botters there too and appearing to make the total losses for traders assuming a 8-6 final score "multi-millions" across all exchanges
- Sportsbooks all appear to have paid out incorrectly initially as well, but it seems all of them have resettled based on the 7-6 final score. CFTC certified exchanges on the other hand don't quite work the same way as sportsbooks.
- I fail to make riches since my 1am brain was staring at just the totals market and didn't notice the spread market had stayed open longer until it was too late
- I'm aware of some of the big winners, but am yet to hear who specifically were the big losers on this score adjustment
- Kalshi volume on the two "incorrectly" settled markets: 1.1mil on o/u 13.5 runs, ~60k on o/u 7.5 Giants team total. No idea or guess on how much was traded on the PolyUS "incorrectly" settled spread market. I would not expect a refund if you had the wrong side of these markets since the settlements appear to have complied with the sites' CFTC rules, but we'll see
TLDR: An official MLB score correction post-game made some grinders rich and rinsed others (mostly botters, I assume). Per the sites' CFTC rules, it appears all markets were settled correctly despite being inconsistent settlements
So even Rich Paul thought it was likely to be Miami. We let LeBron think too long!
Lance Uppercut retweeted
ESPN's Ramona Shelburne said Rich Paul told her that "for a lot of the time" Paul thought it would be Miami for LeBron "but when you won in a place before, it might not be the same. You want to leave those memories as they are. This appeal of something new is attractive."
Final on this ends up being a lot, but getting the main thrust wrong (Miami) is painful despite planting the flag.
I think a lot of the analysis in my thread holds up and explains LeBron's decision though. The core of all of this is his psychological profile and the longer variance pushes him towards options that are more basketball-centric rather than emotional-centric.
The way Philly wins is him selecting contention and the highest ceiling option for his skill as an organizer on the court. To take the frame of the younger athlete one last time, to "have fun" by stomping in deep playoff runs. They offer enough depth to allow him to take time off to go West and only really need him for playoffs.
Golden State I think got too wrapped up in the mystique of this theoretical AD trade. It's easy to write post-hoc, but much reporting indicated Warriors just weren't that into it.
There is also one predictive pattern here that was hard to shake off: LeBron camp signals have been indicative of prior winners. But the form of the camp signal is hard to see in the moment; phone call with the big 3 in 2010, private meeting with Gilbert in 2014, meeting with Magic Johnson in 2018. We didn't have meetings this go around, but we did have these persistent quotes from Shams, Stein, related reporters that LeBron was "taking the Sixers seriously" that read differently from the usual "sources around the league think...". So I suppose the camp signal about "sources close to LeBron thinking" was right all along showing the Sixers.
I think this decision was made today, he landed on it and felt it would minimize his regret.
Wow! Ended up more on this market because of this outcome with Philly always being so cheap. Really an all-timer, and a total surprise from the King.
