Unpredictable: Part 1 – The rise and fall of Intrade, the world’s first prediction market

“What they were doing then is exactly — and I mean exactly — what billion-dollar companies are doing today”

Backed by Rupert Murdoch and two other billionaires, Intrade was the Dublin-based company that can legitimately claim to be the world's first prediction market, 25 years before Kalshi and Polymarket achieved multi-billion-dollar valuations with similar business models. Intrade's first problem was that it was two decades ahead of its time – but that was just the start of its misadventures. The Intrade story arc reads like a Netflix drama. When its founders left Dublin and flew home to New Jersey, they appointed a hugely ambitious young finance manager called John Delaney as the new CEO. Delaney had grown up a house alongside the family pub in Ballinakill, County Laois and he arrived in Dublin with big dreams and a lot of attitude. He became far better known in the US than the unrelated FAI's chief executive of the same name, appearing regularly on business channels like CNBC and featuring in heavyweight publications like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Delaney was a risk-taker in the business world and outside it. In 2011, he made his second attempt to climb Mount Everest but collapsed and died when just 50 metres short of the summit. Two years after his death, Intrade suspended its customer accounts when it was discovered that almost $3 million of company funds had been transferred without explanation to bank accounts controlled by Delaney before his death. Over the next two days, the full story of Intrade's rise and fall is told by Alan English, who was part of the management team when Delaney was first appointed back in 2000, after leaving his job in London at The Sunday Times.