The 2026 FIA Formula One (F1) World Championship begins this weekend with the running of the Qatar Airways Australian Grand Prix from the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit in Melbourne, Australia on Saturday, March 7 (AppleTV, 11 EST/10 CST/9 MST/8 PST).
The 77th season of the F1 cars worldwide competition will see defending champion Lando Norris try to repeat against the likes of living legend Max Verstappen (Oracle Red Bull Racing), McLaren Mastercard teammate Oscar Piastri, and George Russell (Mercedes-AMG Petronas).
Traders at Polymarket are predicting a new F1 Drivers’ Champion with George Russell (31%) leading the trading pack, followed by Max Verstappen (21%), Charles Leclerc (16%), veteran Lewis Hamilton (9%), defending F1 champion Lando Norris (8%), and Kimi Antonelli (7%).
Eleven race teams will be competing on the circuit to become the F1 Constructors’ Champion with the final race coming in the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Sunday December 6 (AppleTV, 8 EST/7 CST/5 PST).
Polymarket traders have Mercedes (40%) the favorites over Ferrari (24%), followed closely by McLaren (23%), Red Bull Racing (12%), with Aston Martin (2%) getting little ‘Yes’ action.
The next race on the 2026 F1 Calendar is the Heineken Chinese Grand Prix from the Shanghai International Circuit in Shanghai, China on Sunday, March 15 (Apple TV, 3 am EST/12 am PST). There will be three 2026 Formula 1 races held in the US (Miami, Austin, and Las Vegas).
@F1
Odds Not Great the Pope Will Meet Trump Before Easter
Myriad Markets has a unique market, ‘Will Donald Trump Meet with the Pope Before Easter?’ and there has been a dominant ‘No’ sentiment at the exchange with ‘No’ trading at 83.5% on March 1 with the ‘Yes’ at 16.7%.
Looking at the chart for this market, we see there has never been any real confidence of a meeting before this date between US President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV, with the ‘Yes’ high only peaking at 24.3% (February 3).
The big thing with many of these markets is that the calendar is always moving and important people always have a lot of things on their itinerary. There is no real need for these two to meet right now, and the Vatican is far from the White House, both geographically and morally.
Kalshi Removes Affiliate Badges From Majority on Twitter
On Monday, February 23, social media platform X (Twitter) removed the Kalshi badges of all affiliates for non-employees of the popular prediction market. Twitter recently updated its paid partnerships policy to ban any promotional content from accounts tied to sports betting.
The official prediction market partner of X, Polymarket, has yet to follow suit. The Kalshi badges were officially under review, but this stemmed from Twitter Head of Product Nikita Bier calling PM content “spam” and threatening to suspend @infodexx for not disclosing Kalshi sponsorship.
First reported by @PredictionNews_, a spokesman from Kalshi confirmed the surprise badge yank, telling Front Office Sports, “We’ve decided to remove Kalshi badges.” So Kalshi has ended the badges, saying “It became too difficult to police and people often confused badge accounts with Kalshi-endorsed messages.”
“People loved the badges and it was a fun way to engage the community, but it became too difficult to police, and people often confused badged accounts with Kalshi-endorsed messages. We’ll figure out other ways to make things fun for our traders.”
Will Opinion Labs Launch a Token by____?
We always see Kalshi and Polymarket as the top two prediction markets in terms of volume, but Opinion Labs always seems to come in at #3, so the Web3/crypto exchange focused on decentralized trading and prediction markets has created a nice little niche in the space.
Like Polymarket, Opinion (OPN) will no doubt be launching a token soon ($OPN), and it is designed to serve as the blockchain-based prediction market Opinion.Trade platform’s native utility token. The company secured some $5 million in a seed round and a $20 million pre-Series A round.
According to traders at Polymarket, the chances of an Opinion token launch by March 31, 2026 was trading at 86% while ‘Will Opinion Launch a Token by June 30, 2026?’ was at 99% with ‘Will Opinion Launch a Token by September 30, 2026?’ also at 99% and ‘Will Opinion Launch a Token by December 31, 2026?’ at 100%.
What Will be the Highest Grossing Movie in 2026?
In the Culture section at Polymarket, traders have a long market (ending December 31, 2026) in the ‘Highest Grossing Movie in 2026?’ and it’s a tight race so far between the top two films, but we have a long way to go with the calendar still saying it’s Winter and snow covering much of the US.
The two movies traders think may end up being the box office champ this year are Spider-Man: Brand New Day (38%) and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (31%). Avengers: Doomsday (16%), The Odyssey (4%), Michael (3%), and Toy Story 5 (3%) also were seeing limited ‘Yes’ buying.
In the US, Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be released on July 31, 2026, meaning five solid months of box office revenue in 2026 (August-December). The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will be released on April 1, 2026 with the animated sequel to the original being released in IMAX and RealD 3D.
That means a solid eight months of box office for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (April-December).
Oscars 2026 Markets Preview: Best Actress Winner
We continue our look at 2026 Academy Awards winners categories for the upcoming Oscars night at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California on Sunday March 15 (ABC, Hulu, 8 EST/7 CST/6 MST/5 PST) with a look and microanalysis of the popular ‘Best Actress’ category.
In the ‘Oscar for Best Actress?’ market at Coinbase, Entertainment traders are all over Irish actress Jessie Buckley (91%) for her role as Agnes in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet followed by Rose Byrne (7%), Emma Stone (2%), Kate Hudson (2%), and Renate Reinsve (1%).
➤Trading Thoughts: This is one of those get-it-before-it’s-too-late/bonded situations with frontrunner and prohibitive favorite Buckley having already won awards for the same role in both the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards. Trading Pick: Jessie Buckley, Yes 92¢
MLB Futures Markets Preview: American League MVP
The 2026 Major League Baseball season starts later this month on March 26 with the San Francisco Giants facing Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees from Oracle Field in San Francisco in an interleague Opening Night offering from Netflix (8:05 EST/5:05 PST). Netflix? Yep, Netflix.
Last season, the Toronto Blue Jays won the American League pennant and advanced on to the 2025 World Series where they lost to the NL champion Los Angeles Dodgers in a 7-game series. This year, 15 teams from the AL will compete again to see who can make it to the Fall Classic.
In the ‘AL MVP Winner?’ market at Kalshi, the Bronx Bombers legend Aaron Judge (33%) leads the pack followed by the Royals Bobby Witt Jr. (16%), the Mariners Juilo Rodríguez (11%) and his talented teammate and slugging backstop Cal Raleigh (9%).
Also seeing some ‘Yes’ contracts bought in the ‘AL MVP Winner?’ prediction market exchange Kalshi are the Red Sox Roman Anthony (7%), the Guardians José Ramírez (6%), the A’s Nick Kurtz (6%), the Blue Jays Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (6%), the Orioles Gunnar Henderson (4%), and the Rays Junior Camineiro (4%).
➤Trading Thoughts: Last season, Judge (6-7, 282) won the AL MVP again—he has won it two straight times and three of the last four MLB seasons (2022, 2024, 2025)—putting up impressive numbers again in The House That Ruth Built with a .331 BA, 53 HR and 114 RBI (1.144 OPS, #1).
Judge started Spring Training off Saturday (February 21) with a bomb, and Judge has played 158 and 152 games the last two seasons, so his durability despite being so large and getting older (33) is admirable. Fade at your own peril. Trading Pick: Aaron Judge, Yes 33¢, Gunnar Henderson, No 96¢
MLB Futures Markets Preview: National League MVP
The Dodgers proved again they are the best team in MLB, and when you have maybe the best player ever at the game, it’s easy to build around him. And that is exactly what Los Angeles has in two-way star Shohei Ohtani, the Babe Ruth of the modern baseball era.
Ohtani helped lead Los Doyers to a second straight World Series win, and was named the 2025 NL MVP for a second straight year as the Japanese superstar won his fourth overall MVP (AL 2021, 2023; NL 2024, 2025) despite not pitching that much during the season for precautionary reasons.
In the ‘NL MVP Winner?’ market at Kalshi, Shohei Ohtani (54%) is already trading far in front of the competition with only the New York Mets Juan Soto (14%), the Braves Ronald Acuña Jr. (8%), the Reds Elly De La Cruz (6%), the Padres Fernando Tatis Jr. (6%), the Dodgers Kyle Tucker (4%), the Cubs Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman (4%), the Philadelphia Phillies Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber (4%) and the Diamondbacks Corbin Carroll (4%).
➤Trading Thoughts: The Dodgers plan on putting RHP Ohtani back into the starting pitching rotation, so keep your eye on that if trading in this ‘NL MVP Winner?’ market. If he shows any arm problems, expect the club to shut him down once again to preserve their top hitter and superstar.
Last year, Ohtani (6-3, 210) batted .282 with 55 HR, 102 RBI and has a 1.014 OPS (#2), but trust, Ohtani won’t be happy with those gaudy numbers and will also want to prove he can still be an ace. Winning another World Series was the point, but improvement is a part of Ohtani’s game.
The only thing that can probably stop Ohtani is a serious injury while the only other player in the Senior Circuit who could possibly have great enough numbers to capture the award is Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes and he was trading at less than 1%. 流れに身を任せて (Go with the flow.) Trading Pick: Shohei Ohtani, Yes 54¢
@MLB
2026 NCAAB Men’s Championship Game Qualifiers
We saw four of the best teams on NCAA College Basketball playing on Saturday, February 21 when #2 Houston lost to #4 Arizona and #1 Michigan fell to #3 Duke in the rarest of occurrences when the pollsters and oddsmakers four top teams meet and not in the Regular Season.
Even with pundits, pollsters, and the general population chirping in chorus that Michigan, Arizona, Duke, and Houston are the best four out there now and that this could have been a Final Four preview, conventional wisdom says it won’t be that easy this year and two of the four will be lucky to be there, should they make it.
At Kalshi, traders can buy Yes-No contracts for which two teams will end up in the 2026 National Championship Game from Lucas Field in Indianapolis, Indiana on Monday, April 7 (TBS, 9 EST/8 CST/6 PST), and those four schools are in the top five choices by traders at the exchange.
Duke (45%) and Michigan (35%) lead the market followed by Arizona (23%), Florida (23%), Houston (19%), Wisconsin (14%), UConn (12%), Gonzaga (11%), Illinois (11%), Kansas (11%), Purdue (9%), North Carolina (9%), St John’s (7%), Iowa State (7%), Texas Tech (6%), and Arkansas (2%).
➤Trading Thoughts: This is one of those rare markets which will have two winners, which seems ideal for the sophisticated trader who can weed out survivors and also pick two or three longer shots who have a chance to make the Final Four to actually have a chance to get to the title tilt.
The two teams that made it to the 2025 National Championship Game—defending champions Florida and Houston—have the stuff it takes to get to Naptown again and great coaches and Arizona also looks elite. And scrappy St John’s (Yes 7¢) is a good choice. Trading Picks: Florida (Yes 19¢), Houston (Yes 20¢), Arizona (Yes 31¢), Texas Tech (Yes 6¢), Wisconsin (No 97¢)
@StJohnsBBall
Chelsea at Aston Villa in Premier League Match Wednesday
Villa Park (Desso GrassMaster) in Aston, Birmingham, England is the site of this 2025-26 English Premier League fixture between host and 3rd-place Aston Villa (15-6-7) and now 6th-place Chelsea (12-9-7) on Wednesday (USA, 2:30 EST/1:30 CST/11:30 PST).
These two played on the day after Boxing Day (December 27) at Stamford Bridge where the Villans painted the Blues black in a 2-1 upset in West London as Ollie Watkins scored two goals in the second half to erase a 1-0 Chelsea lead at the break thanks to a goal from striker João Pedro.
Kalshi traders like Cole Palmer and Chelsea (40%) over Morgan Rogers (8 goals) and Aston Villa (35%) with a Draw trading at 25% and the Over 2.5 Goal Scored being given a 60% chance to cash (Yes 58¢, No 43¢). With the Both Teams To Score prop (‘Yes’) also trading at 60% (Yes 58¢).
➤Trading Thoughts: Reece James and the Blues have struggled against Watkins (8 goals) and Villa Park the last two meetings, losing both by 2-1 scorelines in EPL play after taking a 1-0 lead in the first half. The Blues went an unbeaten 2-1-0 in the previous three meetings (8 GF-3 GA).
Both are fighting for a lucrative 2026-27 UEFA Champions League berth, with Arsenal and Manchester City fighting for the league title this Winter and Spring. The Lions are much better than in previous seasons much in part to standout Argentinian GK Emiliano Martínez (6 CS). Trading Pick: Both Teams To Score, Yes 58¢
@AVFCOfficial
NBA Doubleheader Tipping Off on ESPN on Friday Night
The 2025-26 NBA Regular Season heads into the second half of the year after the 2026 All-Star Break with several teams “tanking” in a sad display of trying to lose games in hopes of getting a better pick (through lottery chances) in the 2026 NBA Draft. This league needs a better way.
On Friday evening, three teams who aren’t tanking will be in action, but one, the Mavericks (21-38, 7-19 Road), will be, and will face the Celtics (39-20, 19-9 at Home) at TD Garden in Boston in an interconference dribble with much more meaning to the hosts (ESPN, KFAA, NBC Sports Boston, EST/6 CST/4 PST).
The second half of the doubleheader sees Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers (27-31, 13-18 Road) facing his old team, the Spurs (43-17, 21-6 Home) at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio in a Western Conference collision (ESPN, FanDuel Sports Network Southwest, 9:30 EST/6:30 PST).
In the NBA Season Outcomes in the Professional Basketball category at Robinhood, traders are giving Victor Wembayama and the Spurs a 99% chance of making the 2026 NBA Playoffs—which start April 14 with the Play-in Round—with the Clippers sitting at a 44% (Bid $0.42—Ask $0.44).
➤Trading Thoughts: The Mavericks have been without rookie and 2025 Naismith College Player of the Year and Duke product Cooper Flagg due to an ankle sprain and have been losing consistently now, especially on the Road where Dallas was just 7-20 heading into this game.
When these two met on February 3 in Dallas, the C’s won 110-100 as Jaylen Brown had 33 points and 11 rebounds as Boston outscored Dallas in the first three quarters (+3, +5, +11) before calling off the dogs. Flagg played that night, her he may miss. Trading Pick: Celtics minus the Points
@SportsCardInv
UFC 326: Holloway vs Oliveira 2 on Saturday Night
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) will host UFC 326: Holloway vs Oliveira 2 at the T-Mobile Arena on The Strip in Paradise (Las Vegas), Nevada on Saturday, March 7 (Paramount+, PPV, 9 EST/8 CST/6 PST—Main Card).
The main event will feature a BMF Lightweight title rematch between defending champion Max Holloway (27-8-0) and Charles Oliveira (36-11-0, 1 NC). When they last fought way back on August 23, 2015 as Featherweights in UFC 74, Holloway won on a KO/TKO in Round 1 (1:39).
The fight ended in abrupt fashion with Oliveira being temporarily paralyzed after suffering a serious injury while attempting a takedown. Both have become champs in different weight classes since then, and a rematch has long been desired. UFC owner Dana White has made it happen.
Polymarket traders are backing Max Holloway (68¢) to defeat Charles Oliveira (33¢) again in the main event in Sin City and become the ‘BMF ‘with traders also liking Raul Rosas Jr (67¢) over Rob Font (34¢) in their fight in the octagon and Caio Borralho (70¢) over Reinier De Ridder (31¢).
➤Trading Thoughts: The approach here would be to keep it light on Saturday night, and look to Kalshi for a “combo” (parlay) contract with favorites Holloway, Rojas, and Borralho for pizza money. Trading Pick: Holloway (68¢) Rosas Jr (67¢) Borralho (70¢) Combo (Kalshi)
➠In the next issue of The Prediction Report, we’ll look at the 2026 World Baseball Classic, a couple of insider trading arrests, Which Companies Will be Acquired in 2026?, the 2026 NBA Rookie of the Year race, both the AL and NL Cy Young Award markets, Who Will WIn a PGA Major This Year?, Wrexham vs Chelsea in the FA Cup, #18 North Carolina at #1 Duke in College Basketball, Inter vs AC Milan in the Dellmadonnia, as well as the Best Supporting Actor race for the upcoming 98th Academy Awards. Thank you for subscribing.