Former Netflix film chairman Scott Stuber has acquired the film rights to journalist Zoë Bernard’s upcoming book, “The Gamble: Inside the Race to Dominate Prediction Markets—and Own the Future.” The book chronicles the billion-dollar companies Kalshi and Polymarket.
Stuber, who left Netflix in 2024 to establish his own media company, will produce the film. Tze Chun, known for his work on “I’m a Virgo” and “Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai,” has been tapped to adapt Bernard’s book. The book itself was sold in April to Little, Brown and Company.
Bernard's book proposal positions the non-fiction work as a blend of “The Social Network” and “The Big Short.” It focuses on the founders of these prediction markets: Shayne Coplan of Polymarket and Tarek Mansour and Luana Lara Lopes of Kalshi. The proposal highlights their youth, describing them as "brilliant, ruthless, and obsessed with winning," and notes that all three are billionaires on paper.
The book aims to capture the rapid growth of prediction markets, which it compares to the velocity of early social media, with the potential to reach a trillion-dollar market within a decade. It also points out that these markets were largely illegal in the United States until recently, and their rise has been swift, moving from college dorm rooms to national media attention.
Bernard’s reporting for the book includes extensive detail on the founders and their companies, aiming to reveal the high-stakes ecosystem of prediction markets. It introduces a diverse cast of characters, including college dropouts, mathematicians, and professional poker players, who are actively making money by forecasting future events. The narrative promises to uncover a rivalry described as "cutthroat as it is childish."
Stuber reportedly won the rights in a competitive bidding war, with other interested parties including Amy Pascal and the producing duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. The acquisition follows a trend where studios may be cautious about projects involving influential tech figures, as evidenced by Amazon MGM's recent decision to drop a nearly completed film about Sam Altman.
Bernard previously wrote about these companies for Vanity Fair and also penned a piece for Wired titled “Inside the Gay Tech Mafia.”
Kalshi was founded in 2021 by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, while Shayne Coplan founded the crypto-based Polymarket in 2020. Luana Lara Lopes is noted as Kalshi’s COO and is described as the youngest woman billionaire, with a background as a former ballet dancer.