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Who Is Afraid of the Odds?
Ten days after Flávio Bolsonaro overtook Lula for the first time on Polymarket, Brazil blocked Polymarket, Kalshi, and other prediction-market platforms. The official justification was regulatory: according to the government, these contracts functioned as unauthorized bets. Months later, however, those markets continue to produce electoral signals that differ from traditional polling. The episode raises a broader question: when polls, models, and money point in different directions, should a democracy restrict the instrument—or try to understand why it disagrees with the others?