I made $175,000 betting on Ariana Grande on Kalshi…
The bets just keep on coming.
Prediction markets continue to surge in recognition. On Kalshi and Polymarket, the 2 most common prediction markets in America (and America’s news-cycle), complete trading quantity surpassed $24 billion in April 2026, up from about $1.8 billion a yr prior, according to analysis from The Block.
Kalshi is a prediction market where customers can buy and promote contracts tied to if and how future occasions will play out. Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
The most profitable predictors, so-called sharps, are discovering edges in surprising markets, from music charts to Super Bowl broadcasts to Great Plain tornadoes. Meet three of them.
‘It’s a combine of data and vibes’
Joel Holsinger, a 26-year-old Brooklynite, started trading on prediction markets and creating content around them in July 2024. As of September 2026, he determined he was doing effectively enough to stop his day job in accounting; since then, he’s made around $250,000.
His specialty is point out markets, which take predictions on particular phrases or phrases that could be used during live occasions.
During this yr’s Super Bowl, for instance, while the remaining of the world was wagering on the end result of the Seattle Seahawks-New England Patriots bout, Holsinger had the amount dialed up on commentators Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth. He’d studied up on the duo’s earlier broadcasts, and, all night long, was stalking social media and the sport script to see which gamers, celebrities and soccer lore the speaking heads have been seemingly to deliver up.
Joel Holsinger labored in New York as an accountant before quitting his job to go full-time on the prediction markets. He also makes content on his wagers. Emmy Park for NY Post
Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth have called dozens of video games together over the years, so Holsinger had loads of transcripts to research for his predictions. AP
His largest place on the night, that the announcers wouldn’t say “What a catch,” hit. By evening’s end, he’d profited about $8,800 on his predictions.
Holsinger is utilizing his winnings to fund his marriage ceremony in August and a honeymoon to Europe.
“It’s been pretty life changing,” he said. “I made last year’s salary in my last few months trading.”
“It doesn’t seem real to me”
Brandon, 26 and a sixth-grade instructor from Pennsylvania, has made over $175,000 {dollars} on Kalshi by betting on how high songs by pop stars like Ariana Grande will climb on the charts.
“[This] is what I’ve been doing all my life for fun,” Brandon, who requested not share his last identify for privateness causes, told The Post.
Brandon is an Ariana Grande super-fan and has turned his ardour for her music into an extremely profitable side-hustle. In the past yr, he made more money predicting how high Grande’s songs will climb on the music charts than he made at his day job as a instructor. supplied to NYP
It didn’t happen to him to revenue off of his Grande instinct until, in early 2024, he precisely predicted the hits and gross sales for her “Eternal Sunshine” album on X. He nailed how many copies the file would promote within 1%, and a follower promptly despatched him a direct message asking if he’d heard of Kalshi. Did he know he might make real money off these predictions?
“I said, ‘No f—ing way,’” Brandon recalled.
Ariana Grande, pictured right here at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, is just not the only star Brandon will guess on. In latest months, he’s widened his predicting-aperture to embrace Travis Scott, Bruno Mars and a few other stars — nearly all with equal ranges of success. AFP via Getty Images
His experience comes from years of real fandom and chart-watching. Since center faculty, Brandon has been staying up until midnight on Thursdays, when new music releases.
He also research music monitoring websites like LivePopBars and KWORB. While gross sales figures on iTunes and some other streaming platforms are no longer publicly obtainable, he’s constructed up enough of a mental model over the years to reverse-engineer data and estimate where songs will rank by week’s end.
“I know when Ariana drops a song on iTunes and it hits number one, [on average], she’s selling 20% more [copies] than the number two song,” he said. “I just know.”
At first, Brandon was wagering $20 to $500 {dollars} on musicians like Grande, Drake, Travis Scott and Bruno Mars. Now, his bets can climb as high as $35,000.
Brandon shared a screenshot of latest prediction tickets. The inexperienced numbers are profitable payouts. supplied to NYP
With his winnings, he’s paid off his pupil loans and car loan and enrolled in lessons in the direction of his grasp’s in instructing. He’s also purchased a quantity of presents for his household — a signed John Cena poster and Eagles tickets for his brothers, a puzzle desk for grandpa, a $600 present certificates to the hair salon for grandma and tickets to “Stranger Things” on Broadway for the entire clan.
“It doesn’t seem real to me,” he said.
Most importantly, he’s had the money to preserve his instructor’s license.
“[If I lost that] it would have absolutely broken my heart,” Brandon said.
“You have to manage your risk”
A climate scientist who studied meteorology at the College of DuPage in Illinois, Paul Sieczka has been chasing tornadoes since 2013 and predicting them on Kalshi since 2022.
He’s made about $45,000 to date, a large chunk of which went in the direction of buying a new Mazda3 — so he might chase down more tornadoes.
Paul Sieczka started chasing tornadoes in 2013 and predicting them on Kalshi in 2022. supplied to NYP
“I paid it off in like six months,” the 32-year-old from Chicago told The Post. “[Without the winnings], it would have taken me three years.”
To inform his bets, Sieczka makes use of publicly obtainable sources like PivotalWeather.com and Weather.cod.edu, which is operated by his alma mater’s meteorology program.
Sieczka discovered his edge by checking these fashions against forecasts and anticipated temperatures, and by measuring how they modified over time. The cumulative image that paints is way more detailed than what’s obtainable on Weather.com or Accuweather, which Sieczka thinks most of his competitors depends on.
Though Sieczka works in the non-public sector of the climate industry, he says that all of the sources he makes use of to inform his predictions are publicly obtainable. supplied to NYP
Experiential data performs a function, too, having pushed through a number of storm seasons from starting to end, from Chicago to Wyoming to Oklahoma and back again.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Sieczka said. “A lot of driving, a lot of empty fields, and you have to manage your risk … [but it’s all worth it for] the adrenaline, the success.”
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