So-called prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket—sites for online gambling, though the companies say they are a form of derivatives trading—have gamified modern life to a previously unforeseen degree. Users can bet not only on events bettors have traditionally gambled on, like sports, but also on bizarrely trivial matters like whether US president Donald Trump will use the expressions “big beautiful bill” or “rigged election” at the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardon. They can take a position on other seemingly comical but potentially hugely consequential outcomes too, like whether the US government will confirm the existence of alien life by the year 2027. On a darker note, some successful bets on life-and-death events such as war in Iran and the abduction of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro have raised questions about whether bettors are trading on insider knowledge.
Now Kalshi has launched a new category that will let users bet on phenomena like the prices of individual artworks at auction as well as total sales values at particular art auctions.
“The markets give collectors, art funds, dealers, institutional investors, and retail speculators a first-of-its-kind tool to express views on the art market—and hedge against it—with the precision and transparency of a regulated financial instrument,” says Kalshi in press materials.
Most of the people making money at auctions are the already well-to-do, the company says. Obviously, that would include those who can sell valuable artworks but also those who can cash in on auction results in other ways, for example through arcane structures such as third-party bids, which allow a potential buyer to commit to a certain price on an item and, if they are outbid, earn a percentage of the upside. Now, says Kalshi, investors “of all financial backgrounds” can benefit.
Auctioneer Yü-Ge Wang sells Gerhard Richter’s Kerze (Candle) for $35.1 million
Photo Alan Padilla/Courtesy Christie’s
Asked about the possibility of insider training, a spokesperson for Christie’s said in an email that it “has long had robust policies in place regarding employee activities around our live and online auctions, including certain restrictions on bidding by the employee themselves and their close family members, and the use of confidential information. By extension, these guidelines would preclude involvement in prediction markets.” Sotheby’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new offering or whether employees are allowed to participate in these sites. Phillips declined to comment.
“Art is one of the largest and least liquid asset classes on earth, and it has historically been one of the hardest to hedge,” said Valeria Vouterakou, legal counsel at Kalshi, in press materials. “A collector sitting on ten million dollars in impressionist paintings has no efficient way to manage that exposure—until now. We’re giving the art world the same financial infrastructure the rest of the economy takes for granted.”
According to the Art Basel/UBS Art Market Report 2026, the global art market grew 4 percent to an estimated $59.6 billion. Nearly half of that, some $24.8 billion, was accounted for by auction sales, which rose 6 percent year-over-year after two years of declining sales values. Many companies have aimed to “democratize” the art market by helping everyday people benefit from a slice of that pot of money, for example New York–based startup Masterworks, which allows investors to buy shares in blue-chip artworks. Kalshi’s move aims to lower the bar even further, to where one doesn’t need to have enough resources to buy even a share of an artwork, but rather can cash in on pure prognostication.
Some of the results users are already betting on are whether various artists—Jean-Michel Basquiat, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso—will see their auction records broken this year. (Most are betting no.) Also up for grabs is what the priciest artwork of the year will go for; at time of writing, bettors seem evenly split as to whether it will be $250 million or $300 million. (Either way, an ambitious bet, as the priciest artwork at auction so far has rung up at $181.2 million.) Elsewhere, users are wagering on whether individual artworks will sell above certain prices.
One New York art adviser, speaking anonymously, resorted to an old saw to express skepticism about the new venture’s potential for anyone not already highly clued in to the art market. “If you can’t determine who’s the sucker in the room,” said the adviser, “it might be you. The art market thrives on opacity and information asymmetry. Prediction markets are just a more extreme version of that.”
The rise of such companies has been dramatic and rapid. “Combined monthly global trading volume on these platforms has risen from less than $5 billion in September 2025 to about $24 billion in April 2026,” according to a Pew Research Center analysis. That rise has led to heated debate not only about the nature of what people are betting on but also whether the companies should be overseen by state gambling regulators. Trump weighed in only yesterday in a Truth Social post, saying it’s “critically important” that the companies be overseen by federal regulators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Naming past and present state leaders and political opponents, he added, with characteristic understatement, “We cannot have SCUM like Chris Christie, Letitia James, Tim Walz, and JB Pritzker setting the rules!”
The Trump family has a distinct interest in the future of these companies. Kalshi named Donald Trump Jr. a strategic adviser in 2025.
“Prediction markets in general are appalling, immoral money-grabs—gambling dressed up as a ‘financial market,’” New York dealer and adviser Cristin Tierney told ARTnews. “To see these now being used to corrupt the arts and culture with said indecency hurts my soul.”
