Can love beat the odds? Prediction markets are taking bets this Valentine's Day that celebrity relationships can thrive — or break apart. By wagering money, bettors are setting the odds on the amorous relationships of high-profile figures, from Zendaya to Katy Perry.
For example, on Polymarket, an onlineprediction market, registered users can take a financial position on whether or not American pop starKaty Perryand former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced their relationship in December 2025,will be engagedby the end of 2026. As of early February, the probability of the pair committing to wed by then was 27%. To date, more than $22,800 has been wagered on the couple's fate.
Polymarket users are also betting hundreds of thousands of dollars on aspects of pop-star Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce's engagement, including whether or not they'll be marriedbefore June 30, or if the bride willbecome pregnantbefore she weds (unlikely, according to bettors).
A similarbetis hosted on a prediction market called Kalshi, where the site puts the probability of Swift and Kelce marrying before Jan. 1, 2027, at 70%, based on customers' bets.
"In the spirit of Valentine's Day, who doesn't want to see two people find each other?" Melinda Roth, a professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law, who researches prediction markets, told CBS News.
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While she doesn't personally wager money on prediction markets and has no skin in the game, she does have a preferred outcome.
"I'd rather bet on a love contract than a breakup contract," she said.
Wisdom of the crowd
Polymarket, which operates globally andwas forcedin 2022 to shut down in the U.S., has since relaunched domestically under regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC. Kalshi is similarly regulated by the CFTC in the U.S. and also operates globally.
Experts in prediction markets say that U.S.-based users often access offshore markets on Polymarket, bypassing regulations using virtual private networks, without which Polymarket's global sites would be off limits.
"Americans still bet on Polymarket's non-USA platforms, but they have to go through a VPN, or call a friend or a cousin or whatever," Prof. Roth said.
Other amorous event contracts include:
Will Kylie Cosmetics founder Kylie Jenner and Oscar nominee Timothée Chalametbecome engagedthis year? Kalshi's answer: 53% chanceWill Zendaya and Tom Hollandget marriedby December 31? Polymarket's answer: 49% chance Will Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudsonbe marriedbefore 2027? Kalshi's answer: 27% chance
An expired market even let the public bet on whether or not Caroline Ellison, the former girlfriend of disgracedcrypto entrepreneurSam Bankman-Fried, would have a new boyfriend by the end of 2025.
Such sites rely on the "wisdom of the crowd" theory, which holds that a large, diverse group of people has superior judgment to that of a single individual. Users' bets determine a market's odds, which shift in real time and indicate the likelihood of each outcome.
In an interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes" late last year, Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplancharacterized the platformas "the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now, until someone else creates some sort of a super crystal ball."
Roth said there is at least some truth to Coplan's assertion.
"One way prediction markets work really well is because people do have knowledge, and they put their money where their mouth is," she said.
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Odds of effective regulation are low
Critics of prediction markets say they allow insider trading, the illegal practice of trading a company's stock based on nonpublic material, to fester, putting regular speculators at a significant disadvantage.
"People are using inside information to profit at the expense of people on the other side who don't have that information," said Ben Schiffrin, director of securities policy for Better Markets, a nonpartisan advocacy group focused on financial reform.
Kalshiprohibitsanyone with material non-public information on a contract from betting on it.
As far as playing the odds on romance goes, even those who warn about the sites' potential pitfalls encourage consumers to be optimistic about love, as long as they are aware of the betting stakes.
Rajiv Seth, a professor of economics at Barnard College, characterized betting on love as a relatively "harmless" pastime, "as long as people are aware that they may be trading against insiders, or people with better info than them."
Roth also distinguished between trading on inside information and what she characterized as "superior knowledge."
"Someone who knows that Justin Trudeau bought a ring would have a leg up on other bettors," she told CBS News. "They are not using any skill or creating superior knowledge for themselves. They are taking material, nonpublic information and capitalizing on it."
By contrast, a loyal Swift fan who has read everything under the sun written about and by the artist, "might be able to put two and two together," to make an informed guess about her wedding date, she said.
Coplan, Polymarket's founder, doesn't take issue with the allegation and says it's actually a feature of the platform, rather than a liability, saying, "it's sort of an inevitability that this will happen, and there's a lot of benefits from it."
Skeptics also say such markets increase access to, and encourage, gambling.
"They allow betting on pretty much anything, including celebrity relationships, and that opens up a whole other avenue to get consumers into gambling," Schiffrin said.
Michael Selig, chairman of the CFTC, addressed prediction market regulation in recent comments, saying that while he wants the markets to flourish, he is directing the agency to draft rules governing so-called event contracts.
"For too long, the CFTC's existing framework has proven difficult to apply and has failed our market participants. That is something I intend to fix by establishing clear standards for event contracts that provide certainty to market participants," he said in prepared remarks at a joint CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission event on Jan. 29.
Particularly when it comes to a matter as fickle as love, prediction markets face another challenge: connecting outcomes back to reality. That's why they make the rules clear. For example, speculation about Chalamet and Jenner's status would not suffice as evidence of an engagement. An official representative, or the couple, would have to make a public announcement stating their intention to marry.
"We're engaged," or "I said yes," announcements would suffice for bettors who wagered money on the couple living happily ever after to cash in, according to Kalshi. But unconfirmed rumors would not.
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