Instadocs: The Prediction Games

Netflix put both prediction-market CEOs on camera a week after the Times called it bad blood

The New York Times published its Polymarket-Kalshi rivalry story on 19 July 2026. Netflix dropped Instadocs: The Prediction Games on 26 July. TMDB clocks the cut at 38 minutes. Shayne Coplan and Tarek Mansour appear as themselves. Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Ron Wyden on the TMDB page are archive footage, not a satirical cast. latestnetflix.com's take is that the old gossip that treated this as a scripted feud movie got the genre wrong., ,

Dustin Gouker, who writes a prediction-market newsletter, told the Times, "It's just bad blood. It's become personal." He is also on Netflix Tudum's interview list for the film. So is CFTC chair Michael Selig. So is James Surowiecki. So is Kalshi's head of enforcement, Robert DeNault. Netflix put the rivals and the regulator in the same short film. ,

The raid, the lawyers, the quote about spoons.

Times reporters David Yaffe-Bellany and William K. Rashbaum wrote that FBI agents hit Coplan's New York apartment with a battering ram in November 2024. Coplan called it a Biden-era political attack. Privately, his circle blamed Mansour. Kalshi lawyers had met Manhattan prosecutors to explain that Americans could still use Polymarket, which was supposed to be banned in the United States. Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said the company learned about the raid from media reports. "This is a complete lie," she said of the private-investigator rumor. "A truly bizarre level of paranoia."

Coplan is 28, an NYU dropout. Mansour is 30, MIT, a former Citadel trader. Both are newly minted billionaires. Both have a Donald Trump Jr. business tie. Mansour called Polymarket's actions "illegal" and "immoral" and asked, at a Washington conference, what Panama's insider-trading laws are. "Probably nonexistent." Coplan called Kalshi a "Polymarket copycat." Polymarket's spokesperson answered Mansour with Emerson. "The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons."

Five point six billion on one final.

Tudum's staff write-up, dated 26 July, opens on more than $5.6 billion wagered on the 2026 World Cup final through Polymarket and Kalshi. Executive producer Josh Tyrangiel, in the same article, said Wall Street analysts forecast more than $1 trillion in annual trading volume by 2030. He also said the fights in court, in Congress, and in the film are fights about vocabulary. Is an event contract a bet. Is a trader a gambler.

The synopsis flags two ugly mechanics. Bettors harass war reporters to publish fake news. Hackers manufacture Spotify streams to win millions. Surowiecki, on camera, names insider trading, gaming the system, and "when the existence of a prediction market actually changes what people do." Words + Pictures produced. Steve Yaccino is showrunner. Connor Schell, who worked on The Last Dance, is an executive producer. The first Instadoc was Alex Murdaugh, Unconvicted, in May. This is the second. ,

Gambling911 noted Netflix announced the title on Thursday and put it up early Sunday, hard to find without a direct link. A Netflix clip went out with the drop. The format is the news. A feud story in the Times, a 38-minute film the next weekend, both CEOs still talking. , , ,