There are 'real money' prediction markets, where if you bet wrong you lose your money. One of the biggest is called Polymarket
Even on 'play money' markets like Metaculus, a lot of the volume comes from people passionate about forecasting accurately (which is why they do it for imaginary internet points). As you can imagine, someone who makes predictions about geopolitics in a quantitative, falsifiable way for fun is typically pretty clever (myself excluded)
Even on 'play money' markets like Metaculus, a lot of the volume comes from people passionate about forecasting accurately (which is why they do it for imaginary internet points). As you can imagine, someone who makes predictions about geopolitics in a quantitative, falsifiable way for fun is typically pretty clever (myself excluded)