Every few days in crypto brings a new red-hot gambling trend for degens that’s too thrilling to pass up. This week, for whatever reason, that can’t-miss betting opportunity became predicting the exact words and phrases to be uttered by Donald Trump.
The oddly specific game first whipped up excitement in the build-up to Monday, when the former president sat for a two-hour Twitter Spaces interview with Elon Musk. Perhaps because both public figures loom so large in crypto, some intrepid Polymarket users decided to create a betting pool on what subjects might come up during their conversation.
Many bettors appeared quite confident that Trump was all but certain to discuss a few buzzwords—MAGA, Tesla, censorship—but hours before the interview kicked off, crypto was one of the top betting options, at 63% odds of being mentioned.
Degens the world over eagerly tuned in to Musk’s Spaces that evening to hang on Trump’s every word during a uniquely high-stakes game of bingo. All in all, Polymarket users waged nearly $5 million on the conversation.
Of course though—in classic Crypto Twitter fashion—the Spaces nearly rugged. It took some 35 minutes for some invisible army of anxious X employees to get it to work.
With the connection eventually sorted, after some two hours of conversation, Trump brought up many topics—but failed to mention crypto a single time. Some degens, safe to say, were crushed.
One of the biggest winners of the night ended up being the word “tampon,” which Trump invoked due to a fixation with a law signed by Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate, Tim Walz, regarding feminine hygiene products in Minnesota schools. The word climbed from roughly 7% odds to a massive victory for self-styled “Tampon bros” on Polymarket.
The “Trump Bingo” fad didn’t stop with the Musk interview, however. Days later, millions of dollars were again gambled attempting to guess what the presidential nominee would say during a Thursday press conference.
This time around, though, degens appeared to have learned a lesson about their own relevance. The odds of “crypto” being mentioned sat at just 16%.
Again, Trump didn’t mention the industry once. The “tampon bros,” meanwhile, walked away with yet another victory.
