Luana Lopes Lara: Prediction market payout

Summary

Good Bad Billionaire: Luana Lopes Lara – Prediction Market Payout

BBC World Service
Aired: June 29, 2026
Hosts: Simon Jack & Zing Tsjeng

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the incredible rise of Luana Lopes Lara, the 30-year-old Brazilian ballerina-turned-tech entrepreneur and currently the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. As co-founder of the prediction market platform Kalshi, Luana has reshaped the boundaries between gambling, trading, and information markets in the U.S.—sparking debates around financialization, regulation, morality, and the future of speculation. Hosts Simon Jack and Zing Tsjeng trace Luana’s journey from disciplined ballet training in Brazil to a regulatory showdown with U.S. authorities, finally challenging listeners: Is she good, bad, or just another billionaire?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life and Background ([04:28]–[08:49])

• Driven from a Young Age:
  Luana grew up in Brazil, in a family heavily invested in math and engineering. Her mother was a math teacher; her father, an IBM engineer.

  "Smart family. Not surprising, then, that Luana attended the Tupi Technical School, which focused on teaching sciences." – Simon Jack [04:45]

• Ballet and Academic Excellence:
  Enrolled in the Escola de Teatro Bolshoi, the only Bolshoi school outside Russia—100% scholarship, but tough selection.

  "Luana calls these high school years the most intense of her life. And this is someone who, you know, at one point built a $11 billion startup." – Zing Tsjeng [05:12]

  She was exceptionally disciplined, enduring extreme practices and also competing in science Olympiads, winning gold in astronomy and bronze in math.

2. Education and Move to the U.S. ([07:47]–[09:51])

• Late Start, Early Success:
  Despite a late start preparing for university admissions, Luana was accepted by Harvard, Yale, Stanford, but chose MIT—thanks to a scholarship.

  "She got accepted into three minor universities called Harvard, Yale, and Stanford… She did not. She actually chose to attend MIT." – Simon Jack [08:09]

• Networking and Meeting Kalshi Co-founder:
  At MIT, Luana met Tarek Mansour (Lebanese-American math whiz). Both overachievers, they bonded in advanced computer classes and shared aspirations.

3. The Birth of Kalshi ([10:19]–[13:27])

• Eureka Moment:
  While interning at Five Rings Capital, Luana observed that traders priced in news events and often gambled among themselves on current happenings.

  "Luana's insight was that most trading happens, in her words, when people have some view about the future and then try to find a way to put that into the markets." – Zing Tsjeng [11:48]

• Prediction Markets for Everything:
  The idea: Let people directly trade on probabilities of all events, not just stocks/commodities. The goal, as Tarek said: “Financialize everything. Anything that has a difference in opinion can be traded someday.” [12:11]

• Y Combinator Accelerator:
  Their prototype barely worked, but YC took a chance because the idea was so bold ([13:27]).

  "Michael Sebo told them their idea was so unlikely to succeed, I had to take a chance." – Zing Tsjeng [13:32]

4. Regulatory Challenges ([14:01]–[22:45])

• A Legal Grey Zone:
  At the time, prediction markets were illegal or extremely limited in the U.S. After the 2019 Supreme Court sports betting decision, there was hope but massive complexity ([14:01]).

• Regulatory Strategy:
  Kalshi positioned itself not as gambling, but as a regulated financial exchange, using “event contracts” under commodities law (CFTC)—not betting or gaming law ([15:12]).

  "Importantly, prediction markets were already regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under commodities law, not under gambling law." – Zing Tsjeng [17:30]

• Insider Information Worries:
  The nature of prediction markets opened doors to insider trading risks:

  "Someone earned $400,000 in profit... by betting the exact date that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro would be forced out. The suspicion, of course, was that they had prior knowledge." – Zing Tsjeng [18:23] "The insider trading potential would seem to me to be vast." – Simon Jack [19:05]

• Persistence Against the Odds:
  Dozens of lawyers told them it was impossible. They finally partnered with Jeff Bandman, ex-CFTC official, to craft their approach ([20:00]).

  "Right out of college, we were taking on an insane amount of risk. It was two years without a single product... if we didn't get regulated, the company would just go to zero." – Luana Lopes Lara (as paraphrased) [19:29]

• Regulatory Victory:
  In 2020, CFTC granted Kalshi a federal license—first ever for event-based trading ([22:13]).

  "Kalshi was the first federally regulated events based trading exchange in United States history." – Simon Jack [22:45]

5. Scaling the Business ([26:28]–[29:51])

• Product Launch & Growth:
  Kalshi opened to the public in July 2021. Initial uptake was modest, but exploded with events—GDP growth, Oscar winners, Met Gala predictions, even Supreme Court decisions ([27:28]).

• Credibility and Controversy:
  High-profile bets led to concern and the departure of CFTC officials, some later joining Kalshi.

  "Gamekeeper turned poacher." – Simon Jack [27:19]

• Rapid Acceleration:
  Within a year, processed $10 million in trades; staff grew; trading millions contracts weekly [29:07].

6. The Election Battle ([29:51]–[32:25])

• Political Event Contracts:
  CFTC tried to block Kalshi's 2024 election contracts, but Luana sued and won via U.S. District Court—offering the first legal election bets in over a century ([30:47]).

  "Kalshi predicted Donald Trump's victory more accurately and faster and before traditional polls." – Simon Jack [31:41]

• Financial Surge:
  User activity soared—$500 million bet on the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Luana quickly secured bridge funding from supportive investors as cash ran low ([30:58]).

• Valuations Skyrocket:
  Series C,D,E funding raised over $1.5bn in 2024–25; company valued at $11bn with Luana holding 12%—making her a billionaire ([33:16]).

7. Mainstreaming & Global Expansion ([34:22]–[37:07])

• Public Persona Shift:
  Luana grew more public and playful on X/Twitter, reclaiming the “math nerd” label ([34:22]).

  "I prefer calling myself a math connoisseur, but f time." – Luana Lopes Lara on X (her pinned post) [34:20]

• Mainstream Partnerships:
  Kalshi’s data is now streamed on Google Finance and news tickers on outlets like CNN and CNBC ([35:54]–[36:06]).

• International Move:
  In March 2026, Kalshi launched in Brazil—Luana’s homecoming as a fintech hero.

8. Ongoing Concerns and Debates ([37:07]–[41:31])

• Gambling or Trading?
  The line remains blurred. Critics worry about addiction, the democratization of high-risk speculation, and influencing real-world outcomes.

  "Is Kalshi just gambling disguised in finance terms?" – Zing Tsjeng [37:18]
  "If you're on the losing end of a $5,000 events trading contract, I think you would struggle to see the difference." – Zing Tsjeng [38:34]

• Potential for Abuse:
  Worries persist about insider trading, manipulation, and the ethics of turning politics and national events into games ([39:10]).

  "Do the financial interests of the outcome become an agent in determining the outcome?" – Simon Jack [39:20]

• Company Response:
  Kalshi argues it democratizes opportunity and is well-regulated, with safeguards against insider trading. Investors and even Donald Trump Jr. joined the advisory board, underlining its political relevance.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the CFTC Approval:

  "You now stand with markets that have been around since the 1840s. I have no doubt that in time you'll grow to be a powerhouse too." – CFTC Chairman to Luana [22:37]

• On Kalshi’s Philosophy:

  "Financialize everything. The universe of what is tradable today versus what it can be is so small. Anything that has a difference in opinion can be traded someday." – Tarek Mansour [12:11]

• On Going Against Lawyer Advice:

  "Right out of college we were taking on an insane amount of risk. It was two years without a single product, nothing launched, and if we didn’t get regulated, the company would just go to zero." – (as paraphrased from Luana) [19:29]

• On Social Perception:

  "I prefer calling myself a math connoisseur, but f time." – Luana Lopes Lara (on Bloomberg headline calling her 'math nerd') [34:20]

• On Addiction and Societal Risk:

  “If you’re inviting those people into this world of trading, you’re increasing the universe of people who will take a punt on something because…they always think they’re right.” – Simon Jack [37:47]

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Notable Timestamps

• [04:28] – Luana's family and early ballet years
• [08:09] – Accepted to MIT
• [09:51] – Meeting Tarek Mansour at MIT
• [12:11] – “Financialize everything” vision
• [13:27] – Winning a spot at Y Combinator
• [22:13] – Kalshi receives CFTC federal license
• [27:28] – Kalshi offers contracts on Supreme Court, Oscars, Met Gala, etc.
• [29:51] – Legal fight to bet on political outcomes
• [31:41] – Kalshi predicts 2024 U.S. election winner faster than polls
• [33:16] – Kalshi’s $11bn valuation makes Luana world’s youngest self-made female billionaire
• [36:06] – Multinational expansion—launch in Brazil
• [39:20] – Debates on prediction markets influencing reality
• [45:13] – Reflection: “Would people recognize her name?”
• [46:58] – Host: “Legacy…as much potential impact...as this one.”

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Scorecard and Verdict ([41:31]–[47:22])

Wealth

• Rapid ascent: $1m to $1bn in 5 years.

  "That amount of growth in her bank account…actually quite exceptional given the fact that she's only 30." – Zing Tsjeng [43:09]
  Score: 6/10 (both hosts)

Controversy

• Regulatory, ethical, and societal controversy; but little personal misconduct.

  "The very existence of prediction markets…I think there's room for them to grow in controversy." – Zing Tsjeng [44:15]
  Score: 8/10 (Simon), 7/10 (Zing)

Power

• Created a new legal industry, persuaded regulators, built a scalable business transforming speculation.

  "Convincing the CFTC that this was not gambling and this was trading…was a major coup." – Simon Jack [45:03]
  Score: 7/10 (Simon), 6/10 (Zing)

Legacy

• Too soon to tell, but hosts agree: could be fundamentally transformative or disastrous.

  "We might look back and say: What were we thinking?" – Simon Jack [47:22] Score: 8/10 (Zing)

Final Question: Good, Bad, or Just Another Billionaire?
Listeners are left to decide—and invited to share their verdicts.

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Listener Reflections

• Steve from Weymouth:

  "We shouldn’t be celebrating billionaires. It’s morally wrong that 12 people have as much wealth as half the world’s population…" [47:57]

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Tone & Language

The hosts keep the discussion playful, inquisitive, and accessible, balancing storytelling with hard analysis. They highlight controversy, ethical complexity, and the breakneck speed of innovation, marrying skepticism with admiration for tenacity.

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Next Episode Preview

• Coming Up:
  The story of tennis legend Roger Federer—another rare “sporting billionaire.”

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Summary Table

| Category | Score (Simon) | Score (Zing) | Notable Quotes/Justification | |--------------|:-------------:|:------------:|------------------------------------------------| | Wealth | 6 | 6 | "From a million to a billion...in five years." | | Controversy | 8 | 7 | "Room for controversy to grow." | | Power | 7 | 6 | "Without her, this wouldn’t exist." | | Legacy | (not scored) | 8 | "Potential impact more than anything YC funded."|

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For those who haven’t listened:
This episode presents a riveting, detailed biography of a quiet disruptor—making sense of a complex new financial world and its moral hazards. With regulatory intrigue, legal battles, breakneck growth, and open questions about whether we’ve unleashed a monster or a democratizing force, Luana Lopes Lara’s story is a vivid snapshot of our speculative, tech-fueled era.

Transcript

[Simon Jack]

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[Simon Jack]

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[Zing Singh]

It's 2012. We're in a ballet studio in Brazil. A teenage girl balances on one toe, the other leg pulled impossibly high and she holds her breath. Beneath her raised thigh a cigarette ember glows almost close enough to scorch her skin, but not quite touching. This cigarette is held by her teacher, waiting to see which will break first, the muscle or the girl's will.

[Simon Jack]

But she doesn't waver. And this discipline and determination will mean that in just over a decade, our ballerina will be a billionaire. Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and we find out how they made their money.

[Zing Singh]

We take them from zero to their first million and then from their million onto a billion.

[Simon Jack]

I'm Simon Jack. I'm the BBC's business editor.

[Zing Singh]

And I'm Zing Singh and I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.

[Simon Jack]

So our billionaire this episode is Luana LOPEZ Laura, just 30 years old, currently worth $2.6 billion. That makes her the youngest self made female billionaire in the world, beating one of our former billionaires.

[Zing Singh]

Yep. Sorry Lucy girl, you are no longer in the top spot. Now you may not have heard of Luana. She's kept her personal life largely private. It's actually quite hard to find out that much about her. But don't worry, because there is a lot to talk about in this episode.

[Simon Jack]

And that's because Luana, along with her business partner, founded the financial tech company Kalshi. Arabic for everything. And that's an important name.

[Zing Singh]

Kalshi is at the forefront of something that's been called gambling, but in her words, it's just another form of trading.

[Simon Jack]

Trading or gambling, a very important distinction. As we'll discover now, Kalshi is a prediction market. What the hell is that? Well, it lets anyone place a bet on the outcome of an event, any event in the world. And that was something that was, up until Luana came along, completely illegal in the United States.

[Zing Singh]

Yep. As Luana says, they'd look for events that have been ripped directly from the headlines. So, for instance, you go on to Kalshi, you might be able to place a trade on how much snow will fall in New York during a particularly bad snowstorm.

[Simon Jack]

Who will win the Winter Olympics men's hockey gold medal?

[Zing Singh]

What will be the price of a

[Simon Jack]

rare Labubu doll, And, of course, who will win the next U.S. presidential election.

[Zing Singh]

You can think of Kalshi as being like the love child between Wall street and Vegas. So the whole world is a casino and everyone a player.

[Simon Jack]

But crucially, in the United States, it is not actually considered gambling or betting.

[Zing Singh]

Why? Well, let's travel back to the beginning to find out. You can bet. It's going to be quite the story.

[Simon Jack]

Luana Lopez Lara was born in 1996 in Brazil. As a child, she lived in various cities around the country, ending up as a teenager in Joinville. Her family was big on maths. Her mother was a maths teacher. Even her father was an electrical engineer who had worked at IBM. Her older sister got a degree in chemical engineering and a PhD in industrial engineering. Smart family. Not surprising, then, that Luana attended the Tupi Technical School, which focused on teaching sciences.

[Zing Singh]

But her first real passion was ballet. Maybe this is one of the first ever ballet billionaires we've ever covered. So in 2011, at the age of around 16 or 17, she enrolled in a ballet school called the Escola de Teatro Bolshoi. And this is the only branch outside of Russia of the celebrated, sometimes controversial Bolshoi Ballet Company. And the Brazilian school granted 100% of scholarships to all students. But you can bet there was a rigorous selection process. And Luana calls these high School years, the most intense of her life. And this is someone who, you know, at one Point built a $111 billion startup.

[Simon Jack]

And you say rigorous. The days were exactly that. Academic classes were from 7am till noon, and then ballet classes one to 9pm she's just a teenager, remember. And this ballet school emphasizes, I think, like most of them do, importance of discipline. She claimed her ballet teachers held lit cigarettes, as we were hearing, under her thigh while she extended one leg to her ear to see how long she could keep her leg up without getting burned. And this environment did not exactly build camaraderie among the students there. She also claimed that dancers would hide glass shards in each other's shoes in order to injure their rivals and get ahead. We couldn't actually find any response from the school or teachers to those particular claims.

[Zing Singh]

Well, as if this schedule wasn't grueling enough, Luana would study late into the night for academic competitions. So she won gold at the Brazilian Astronomy Olympiad, bronze at the Santa Catarina Mathematics Olympiad. So, I mean, this is clearly a really driven person. It's not enough that she wants to be good at ballet. She's got to dominate maths and science as well.

[Simon Jack]

Horribly competent in all spheres, it seems.

[Zing Singh]

I know, I have to say, I did ballet when I was a small child, very small. I'm going to aphasize that I'm saying

[Simon Jack]

that like a surprise.

[Zing Singh]

Can't you tell from my grief or demeanor? But there was, I think, one girl in my class who became my friend and she's now a prima ballerina. Really, you know, she could tell from the get go that she was driven. There's no way I could have even remotely reached a level. It takes a certain kind of mindset to get to that point. And if you're the kind of person who wants to get there and also win gold at astronomy competitions, you're quite a rare figure.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. Melinda French Gates, Bill Gates ex wife, pointed out the only correlation they can find of women in the C suite, that's CEO, cfo, cto, etcetera, is that they all played sport. And the thesis of that, says Melinda Gates, is that they didn't mind failing. Because in sport you are bound to fail sometimes.

[Zing Singh]

That's interesting.

[BILT Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Simon Jack]

And after graduating, she spent nine months in Salzburg in Austria, performing as a professional ballerina for a season of Swan Lake. And she said, I always wanted to be the best I could be. That's why I fought to dance at the Bolshoi and then decided to pursue the best universities in the world. When I told my parents this was my plan, they basically said, well, let her try. Who knows, it might work out. And boy, did it.

[Zing Singh]

For Luana, the best universities meant moving to the United States. But most American students start the process of preparing for university admissions in the very first year of high school, right, Preparing for the SATs and things like that. So Luana was actually rather late. And she also felt insecure about writing these applications. She was scared that her focus on ballet would be viewed negatively by these elite academic institutions.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, well, they probably liked that sense of discipline and pursuit of perfection. And she needn't have worried, because she got accepted into three minor universities called Harvard, Yale and Stanford.

[Zing Singh]

You might have heard of them.

[Simon Jack]

You might have heard of them. Quite a lot of our billionaires went to one, particularly Stanford. But she did not. She actually chose to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as mit. And it's worth noting that education in the US is incredibly expensive. At the time she was going, it was probably around $60,000 a year, probably about a hundred thousand at the time of recording. But fortunately, she got a math scholarship from the Estudar foundation, which pays for tuition for talented Brazilians.

[Zing Singh]

So Luana moved to the United States in 2014 to study for a bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics and then a master's of engineering. According to Luana, the great advantage of the university for me wasn't the classes and the things I learned, although they were excellent, it was the people I came in contact with.

[Simon Jack]

I think that's true of any university experience, isn't it? That's what you take away with you, you know, your friends, but also a network sometimes of people, particularly at some of these elite US universities. And into this crowd walks Tarek Mansour. He was an international student, also majoring in computer science. Born in California, but had grown up in Lebanon, and he'd been 11 years old during the 2007 Lebanon conflict. Now, like Luana, he, of course, having got there, was an overachiever. He taught himself English while studying for the SATs. He finished second in France's math Olympiad, or Maths Olympiad, which sounds mind bogglingly difficult. And she would always sit in the front row in their advanced computer classes. So was he. And soon they started to sit next to each other and they became friends.

[Zing Singh]

God, what happened to gifted children becoming burnouts? And failing this, this clearly did not happen to either of them because their holidays were not spent relaxing at home. Luana made sure she got internships at really impressive Financial institutions like hedge fund Bridgewater Associates and Citadel Securities.

[Simon Jack]

These are literally the, the biggest hedge funds in the world. You know, they're run by Ken Griffin runs Citadel, Ray Dalio runs Bridgewater. These people are multi, multi billionaires. They are powerhouses.

[Zing Singh]

Wall street and internships are like gold dust. Well, in their senior year in 2018, both Luana and Tarek got an internship in New York at 5 rings capital. That is a big proprietary trading firm. So they trade their own money rather than their clients. And it sells itself as this kind of casual, young, fast paced place. There's a flat structure, so there's not this hierarchical, you know, organization of guys in suits at the very top.

[Simon Jack]

And it was one evening walking back from work, they had their light bulb eureka moment when Loana had an idea that would change both their lives. She'd noticed two things while working at Five Rings. First, that traders would price in external events to their investment decisions. Like for example, an upcoming election might be things that make more volatile a hurricane can change things like crop prices. And second, that when traders weren't working, they were almost always gambling with each other on whatever was going on in the news. It could have been absolutely anything. And I've got to say, having worked in financial services many, many moons ago, I can recognize that people would literally bet on anything, whether it was, you know, how many corners Arsenal would get in the coming game, you know, the over under, about how many runs England would score against India. They would bet on everything and, and websites, you know, cropped up so you could kind of begin to bet on that, but it's pretty limited. And it was called gambling in those days.

[Zing Singh]

Were you good at it? Did you win anything on those bets?

[Simon Jack]

I like to think I was, but my memory is probably incredibly selective.

[Zing Singh]

Right, okay, good to know. Well, Luana's insight into all of this was that most trading happens, in her words, when people have some view about the future and then try to find a way to put that into the markets. But she thought there should be a way for people to directly trade on the probability of events rather than indirectly through traditional financial markets. Tarek immediately saw the potential in this idea. So together they decided to create a business and they called the startup Kalshi, which means everything in Arabic. And that was the core of the idea. So in Tarek's words, financialize everything. Everything can be a tradable asset. The universe of what is tradable today versus what it can be is so small. Anything that has a difference in opinion can be traded someday.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. So basically I could say, I think, who's going to be the next James Bond? Or who's going to win the best Actor Oscar or Actress Oscar? We have a difference of opinion. Suddenly that is a tradable asset. Anywhere where opinions differ, there's a potential trade there. But you need more than a good idea to become a billionaire. So a few months after graduating, they applied to something called Y Combinator, which we have come across on this program before. If you haven't listened to our previous episode on Sam Altman, the Y Combinator is this kind of accelerator for startups, which has created a lot of billionaires. Companies like Airbnb, Reddit, Stripe, Twitch, Scale, AI. Another previous episode. And to win a place on it, Luana and Tarek flew to Silicon Valley and competed in a hackathon, kind of a computer programming sort of test. In 24 hours, they built a website that presented it to Y Combinator's panel of entrepreneurs, pitching it as a New York Stock Exchange for events.

[Zing Singh]

Very grand title there. Unfortunately, their prototype barely worked, but they were still accepted. A partner of Y Combinator, Michael Sebo, told them their idea was so unlikely to succeed, I had to take a chance. So from January To March in 2019, they spent three months in the intensive program, that kind of hot house program. They got mentoring, plus they got $150,000 investment into Kalshi. And around this time, Forbes published its first article about Kalshi and its founders, and in it noted that a sizable portion of what they were hoping to do was still currently illegal.

[Simon Jack]

And let's unpack why that is. Because the gambling and betting laws in the United States are quite different from elsewhere, certainly from the uk Online gambling, sports betting, political betting was effectively illegal across most of the United States. However, 2019, I remember this. It was a big moment. The Supreme Court struck down an act which made it illegal, which meant that states were free to legalize whatever they wanted in terms of betting on a state by state basis. So the state gets to decide it's created. If you like a patchwork system where it's legal in some states, not legal in others, it's not ideal to build a big business when you have a patchwork.

[Zing Singh]

Y Combinator's partner Michael Siebel, said the reason we don't see more tech startups tackle this opportunity is because of the regulatory barriers that make it hard to get a product up and running. But he added, the Kalshi founders have the determination to overcome these regulatory challenges because Luana and Tarek had entered Y combinator with a regulatory strategy. First, they positioned Kalshi not as gambling. Oh, no, never gambling. This was a prediction market. So they wouldn't use traditional gambling wages. Kalshi would use what they call event contracts.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, okay. And it's a bit complicated there, so bear with us. So Kalshi would allow users to sort of buy and sell this binary idea that either this event is going to happen, which is a 1:1, or it doesn't happen, it's a 0. So, and price between 0 and $1. And basically the market would set the probability of that happening and that's when people would exchange their ideas. So you might think that there's a 50 chance that Callum Turner is going to be the next bond. I might think there's a 75 chance of doing that. So I would basically be able to trade that, thinking that I'm going to be more right than you and so I will make money. So the contract settles at $1 if the event occurs, 0 if it doesn't. And what this platform Kalsi is doing is matching our difference of opinion on an exchange. They're not betting their own money, they're matching people's differing opinions.

[Zing Singh]

So, for instance, imagine the event contract, will Xing Zing become a billionaire in this year? And it's trading at 25 cents for yes. Meaning the market believes there's roughly a 25% chance of that outcome, thanks to the market.

[Simon Jack]

I've got to tell you, that's a massive overestimate.

[Zing Singh]

Well, if you bought a yes contract at 25 cents, and I do indeed become a billionaire this year, you profit 75 cents per contract.

[Simon Jack]

Right.

[Zing Singh]

So traders can also exit early by selling their position while it's still fluctuating. So in that sense, it's sort of like the stock market.

[Simon Jack]

So. Yes. So if I think It's. There's a 25% chance that you're going to become a billionaire when you get to half a billion, the chances of that, of that happening, obviously have gone up because you're like, Maybe it's a 70% chance now that you're going to make it all the way to a billion. I can cash out my position now because I've taken it from 25 to 75. So in that sense, you're right. It is a bit like the changing fortunes of a company or a stock market. So, you know, in a way you can sort of see the logical kind of leap they've made there.

[Zing Singh]

I mean, your mileage may differ on this one.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah.

[Zing Singh]

But if you're asking, how does Kalshi actually make money off all of these event contracts? Kalshi would make that cash by charging a commission on every trade. Of course, you know, it also has the potential to sell data to traders, to businesses, political parties, etc. Importantly, prediction markets were already regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, cftc under commodities law, not under gambling law. So event contracts like the one that Kalshi was trying to produce are treated as financial derivatives rather than bets. So Kalshi was saying, oh no, we're not your classic bookies or gambling firms. We're actually a financial exchange for predictions.

[Simon Jack]

And this argument is absolutely fundamental to how this whole story pans out. Because what they needed to do this was a federal license. Federal meaning it'll work in every state from the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission. But this is not going to be easy. There already existed some examples of prediction markets, but there were strict limits on the amount you could bet. Sorry, trade and the number of traders. Large scale, fully commercial event prediction platforms were not broadly approved. So they're breaking some new ground here.

[Zing Singh]

And you might ask yourself, why is this the case? While the regulators had always been concerned about insider trading.

[Simon Jack]

Bingo.

[Zing Singh]

So a real world example from this very year, someone earned $400,000 in profit on a rival prediction market, not Kalshi, by betting the exact date that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro would be forced out from power. The suspicion, of course, was that they had prior knowledge that would happen on that day because they had some kind of, you know, real world link to the Maduro presidency. Similarly, there was a lot of activity on Kalshi around military action in Iran. And you know, this is really worrying because it could incentivize investors to influence events in the world. So imagine you're a lawmaker who delays a bill because you can earn some big bucks on a prediction market. So this was always going to be an uphill struggle to get regulatory approval.

[Simon Jack]

I mean, the insider trading potential would seem to me to be vast. And indeed that military bloke is being prosecuted for that particular example. And what is amazing to me is that if someone came and bet big on the exact date that a Venezuelan president was going to be forced out of office, I would go, hang on a second.

[Zing Singh]

What do you know that I don't?

[Simon Jack]

What do you know that I don't? Exactly. So, you know, anyway, we'll get into that at some greater length. But Luana and Tarek said that one day at Y Combinator, the accelerator they were in, they cold called over 60 lawyers they'd found on Google, every single one of them told them to give up. People had been unsuccessfully trying to do this since the 1980s. And Luanna and Tarek, they were too young, they're too small fry. And she said right out of college we were taking on an insane amount of risk. It was two years without a single product, nothing launched and if we didn't get regulated, the company would just go to zero.

[Zing Singh]

But then they found just the man that they needed. A guy who was a lawyer and former CFTC official. Caught Jeff, Jeff Bandman, who promised them that the landscape was changing. Jeff knew the cftc, he knew the people inside. So he agreed to lead their regulatory strategy. Talk about an angel dropping from the sky.

[Simon Jack]

Well, this is interesting. There are very often these kind of non player characters in these stories that, you know, seem to have just wander onto set on in this drama and are absolutely pivotal. And Jeff Bandman, who I don't suppose anyone has ever heard of, is absolutely instrumental in this story. They had first approached the cftc, the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission, in the spring of 2019. When Covid hit, Luana was in London, Tarek was at home in Beirut. He was there during that city's port explosion. I just remember that incredible boom that killed over 200 people. And for weeks he would go searching for survivors. During the day, he would work on Kalshi at night. But with the guidance of Jeff, Luana and Tarek spent over a year lobbying the Commission on Zoom. Before each meeting, this is interesting, they would memorize a script that they were going to sort of, you know, pitch to them and they would memorize it word for word. So they were on message the whole time.

[Zing Singh]

Now, during this time, Kalshi wasn't the only game in town. A few competitors had popped up, most notably polymarket, who, unlike them, hadn't sought regulatory approval and were letting people bet vast sums of money anonymously with cryptocurrency. But in this case it actually helped Kalshi because they were trying to do everything by the book.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, so they could say they're the good corporate citizen here. They were trying to jump through the right regulatory hoops. But while they were working to become legal at all, they were also trying to raise money. They got big support from a venture capital firm called nio. Now NIO was founded by an early Facebook investor called Ali Partovi. And NIO led their seed funding. That's some of the original capital you get in. And that brought some validation that somebody like that was prepared to back them. The market sits up and pays attention. Well, if this guy's backing them, maybe there's something to it. More traditional Wall street investors like Sequoia Capital, they crop up in a lot of our stories. They were waiting to see that crucial thing about what happens with the CFTC, the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission.

[Zing Singh]

And then in November 2020, after two years of back and forth, Luana finally got a call from the chairman of the CFTC who'd been appointed by President Donald Trump the previous year. And the chairman said, you now stand with markets that have been around since the 1840s. I have no doubt that in time you'll grow to be a powerhouse too. And so for the first time ever in its history, the CFTC had given its approv approval to two 24 year olds. Kalshi was the first federally regulated events based trading exchange in United States history.

[Simon Jack]

And this is a big moment. And now it was time, with that in their back pocket, to raise some serious money. Within weeks they announced they'd raised $30 million in a series A funding led by venture capital giant Sequoia. We just discussed. So Luana Lopez Lara is a millionaire at the start of 2021, aged just 24.

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[Zing Singh]

Well, let's take this 24 year old from a million to a billion. So this was, if you're keeping track of the timelines, this was only five years ago. So this is going to be one of our fastest journeys from millionaire to billionaire. And Kalshi is now legal and it's got funding. But the real question is, are people actually going to use it? So it's July 2021. It's time to open it up to the public. And at this stage it was just a website. A smartphone app was still to and initial activity was, you know, modest.

[Simon Jack]

Well, you know, it takes a bit of getting your head around. But eventually more and more contracts started to roll in and some officials at the CFTC became a bit concerned. And according to Bloomberg, the division cftc, demoralized and overrun, kind of accepted defeat and stopped fighting back, some of the people say. By the end of 2021, three senior officials had left the agency, including the head of the division and the head of the product review team. Interestingly, a former member of the CFTC joined Kalshi's board not long after leaving. Gamekeeper turned poacher.

[Zing Singh]

Talk about a revolving door. Yeah, well, soon Kalshee had dozens of events contracts on their website. Things that people could essentially bet on on issues like will there be negative GDP growth by Q4? Will NASA land a person on the moon before 2025? Who will win the Oscar for best actor? I mean, I recently was following the Met gala and people were betting on what designer a rapper called A$AP Rocky was going to wear. I mean, it's that tiny minute detail. That's the kind of stuff that people are betting on.

[Simon Jack]

And, you know, somebody knows the answer to that.

[Zing Singh]

Exactly. It's not very hard to figure out.

[Simon Jack]

At the end of 2021, they launched markets on the outcomes of US Supreme Court cases. Real moral hazard in this one, I think a hugely popular bet was whether the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, Jay Powell, would be replaced by the then president Joe Biden. It got over nearly quarter of a million. Contracts at wages were capped at $25,000. But Luana had the ambition to push that limit much higher. Six months after launching to the public, they had processed $10 million worth of trades. So it's beginning to get some momentum

[Zing Singh]

and the world was taking notice. Forbes put Luana, still 25 years old, on their 30 under 30 list for 2022. And at this stage, Tarek was acting as more of Kalshi's public face. It's his picture, for instance, in the Forbes article. All of this makes it quite hard to get a sense of Luana and how she's feeling at this point. I mean, if you look at her Instagra, she's this kind of very blonde, statuesque. I mean, you can tell she used to be a ballerina. She holds herself really upright. All activity from before 2024 on her x account. Her Twitter account is missing. So she's quite a private person.

[Simon Jack]

Right, okay. We know, however, that the company itself was growing fast. That year. They had an office in New York. They had a staff of 32. In one of our Instagram posts of their first office, there's a sign that simply reads make money at California. And they were by this point trading 2 million contracts a week.

[Zing Singh]

And over the next couple of years, Kalshi slowly grew its user base. In 2023, they had their first individual user cross a million dollars in yearly income on Kalshi. So they were making a million just from these bets, Basically trades, trades, event contracts. And on the horizon, there was something very important about to happen. The Trump version versus Harris presidential election. And Kalshee of course, knew they were ready to capitalize on this big event.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, but there's a little setback for them. In 2023, the CFTC, the, the police, if you like, for this area, blocked Kalshi's contracts. On the election. They said they look too much like gambling and were not in the public interest. But Luana decided to fight back. And against the advice of her investors, she sued the CFTC on the grounds that the regulator had overreached, overstepped its bounds. And the suit claimed, it is undeniable that election outcomes have consequences for everyone. They play a pivotal role in determining our collective future. So they're that important, they can be traded.

[Zing Singh]

Well, jump forward to September 2024, just weeks before the election. And the U.S. district Court Judge ruled in favor of Kalshee. So this meant that again, Kalshee made history by offering the first legal election contracts in the US in over a century. And of course, Kalshi's users wanted to bet on the election, so Kalshee surged to number one to the number one spot on Apple's App Store.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, because people do like to bet on politics, right? You know, it happens in the UK quite a lot. It's actually perfectly legal and it's, but it's, it's called gambling over here.

[Zing Singh]

Although interestingly, Kalshi is not allowed to operate in the uk.

[Simon Jack]

No, it is not. In fact, I tried to sign up before this thing and said, sorry, illegal in your jurisdiction. That's too bad. I was really wanting to have a go anyway. But what's interesting is that with so many bets coming in the days before the election, Kelsey was actually struck strapped for cash. But remember that early investor we talked about, Ali Potovi at nio? He whatsapped both of them to let them know he's gonna wire them. By the way, I'll wire you $12 million. That's 5 million from Nio, his company, and 7 million from his own back pocket from it personally. And in his message he said, we can figure out the terms later. Says no one ever.

[Zing Singh]

I mean, I feel like I've Hit the jackpot if my friend pays for my Uber. I mean let alone $7 million.

[Simon Jack]

And in total, you users, in total users bet $500 million in that election on the candidates. And Kalshi predicted Donald Trump's victory more accurately and faster and before traditional polls. That's really interesting.

[Zing Singh]

Well, with political betting now on the table, it's time for serious money. Even more serious than the figures we've talked about before to enter the chat. So Luana hadn't sought investment for three years, but over 2024 she held three funding rounds. So you call these like CDE funding rounds. In June they raised $185 million led by a crypto venture capital firm called Paradigm. This now placed the company at a $2 billion valuation, making it officially a

[Simon Jack]

unicorn, which is basically a startup which is worth over a billion dollars.

[Zing Singh]

And in October they raised another 300 million, led by Sequoia Capito and Andreessen Horace Ritz. Kalshee was now worth $5 billion and that is 150% increase in just four months.

[Simon Jack]

And when you've got Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz behind you, you know that means that they're considered the smart money. In Silicon Valley. These people have made billions about, about backing winners.

[Zing Singh]

But actually that's, that's not just it because two months after that in December they raised a further $1 billion.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, that's a very rapid capital raise. I would say unusually rapid, although you know, we keep setting new records. Nevertheless, clearly the venture capitalists think that they're onto something, something that could be very big and they are piling money in hand over fist.

[Zing Singh]

Well, this last funding round valued Kalshi at 11 billion in total. And by this point she owned 12% of the company, putting her net worth at 1.3 billion.

[Simon Jack]

Bing.

[Zing Singh]

So age just 29, this made her the world world's youngest self made woman billionaire. Actually ousting a previous billionaire we've covered on the show Lucy Grohl from her very top spot.

[Simon Jack]

That was a short lived reign for the Lucy, wasn't it? In this crazy world she can always

[Zing Singh]

claw it back though. I'm sure she could.

[Simon Jack]

I'm sure she's not suffering too badly. Let's just take Luana beyond a billion because at this point once you've got that billionaire tag on your, the media really started paying attention. Forbes ran a huge profile on her. Tarek was sort of barely mentioned. He's being shoved slightly to the background. She's become more active on X she posts funny quips and memes. Her banner image on X is a South park meme and her pinned post is a response to a Bloomberg article titled two Maths Nerds Crack open Legalized Gambling on Wall Street. To which she jokes, I prefer calling myself a math connoisseur, but f time.

[Zing Singh]

Well, she's got a sense of humor.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, yeah.

[Zing Singh]

Oh, she also seems to have a lot more confidence and it's no surprise because by the end of 2025, Kalshu was trading over a billion dollars every week.

[BILT Advertiser]

Wow.

[Zing Singh]

But I think it's still relatively niche and I wonder how many of our listeners have used it or heard of it because, you know, we don't allow it in the uk. I doubt very many people.

[Simon Jack]

I think people, I think people have heard of it, but probably might not be able to use it in network. Wherever you're listening or watching this because, because like I say, in many countries it is. There's quite a long list of countries where it's illegal. But it's piqued the interest of people, you know, worldwide for two reasons. One is, you know, it's kind of fun to be able to bet on how much rain is going to fall. And, you know, it's a bit like betting on rain, sorry, trading on raindrops running down a window pane, you know, who hasn't done that? Or two, snails racing or something.

[Zing Singh]

Exactly.

[Simon Jack]

Do you know what I mean? It's sort of kind of far. But also I think people thinking, gosh, there's surely there are going to be people who actually know what's going to happen, who will have an unfair information advantage, which usually the police of the trading world are very, very hot on. So it still seems to some, I think, like a bit of an anomaly.

[Zing Singh]

Well, Luana's next move, I think was to position the company to try and get it to break the mainstream. And to do this, you know, she's partnered with some household names. So Kalshi has made a big deal with Google to include their prediction market data into its finance platform. So essentially being able to stand up and say, hey, we're on the same level of the big dogs.

[Simon Jack]

It's like, it's almost like the ticker that runs down on those financial shows like CNN and cnbc.

[Zing Singh]

And so those news channels are actually going to run real time news tickets displaying Kalshi data along the bottom of their screens.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah.

[Zing Singh]

And so in March 2026, they also announced that, expanding outside the United States. The United States, they launched their first ever international Operations in Luana's home country of Brazil.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, so I'm obviously she's probably considered a homecoming hero in her home country. So we've tried to explain what Kalshi is. We've understood how big it can be because basically, as Tarek said in the early days, you know, the universe of what you can trade is kind of small at the moment. It's like share prices or the price of copper or gold. This is everything, what Kalshi means in Arabic, this is you can trade everything and therefore, you know, the addressable market is almost infinite, really, because it means you can pretty much bet on anything. But as we said, you know, there are those grave concerns, as we've seen in this case, against the military guy from Fort Bragg who bet on the Maduro being ousted. He's being prosecuted because, you know, somebody knew what was going on. And that's why, you know, those concerns continue to hover over this industry.

[Zing Singh]

Industry, exactly. I mean, it's worth talking about some of those concerns in detail because the first one that comes to mind is, is Kalshi just gambling disguised in finance terms?

[Simon Jack]

I'm not saying anything.

[Zing Singh]

And, you know, we know the negative effect that gambling can have on some people. We've covered that story in Denise Coates's episode. She's the founder of bet365. Arguably, you could say this could be more addictive because like you say, the market for potential bets is infinite because

[Simon Jack]

everyone's got an opinion about something, haven't they? Now, people might not have an opinion about whether Microsoft stock was going up or down, so wouldn't be trading that.

[Zing Singh]

Not everyone's a football fan, but everyone's

[Simon Jack]

got an opinion on who should be the next James Bond or who should win the Best Actor Oscar. So if you're inviting those people into this world of trading, you're, you know, increasing the universe of people who will take a punt on something because they think people have, you know, they always think they're right and they think.

[Zing Singh]

Everyone thinks they've got the inside information now.

[Simon Jack]

But Kalshi says that argues that it is highly scrutinized, it's regulated. And Tariq has said in casinos and gambling houses, the revenue they make is out of customers, losses out of their pockets. You get these weird incentives in the industry. For us, we just take transaction fees. We're not taking money out of anyone's losses. So our gain is not our users losses. The losses are between the users, not you against the house, if you see what I mean.

[Zing Singh]

Right. I Mean, if you're on the losing end of a five thousand dollar events trading contract, I think you would struggle to see the difference.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, I guess that's right. And we've talked about, you know, traders with in depth knowledge of an event. Some people know more about stuff than others. Some people are more informed. And Kalsh got an argument for that too. They say it democratizes financial opportunities for the average person. Saying, you know, why not, you know, maybe you know as much as everyone else.

[Zing Singh]

That is an interesting take. I mean, on the other side, on the other hand, you could also argue it just turns politics and real life events into just a game.

[BILT Advertiser]

Right.

[Zing Singh]

You know, should we really be turning political decisions about who should be the next prime minister or president into tradable assets? Is that the kind of mentality we want to be encouraging in people?

[Simon Jack]

I suppose the worry is does the tail begin to wag the dog in the sense that the financial interests of the outcome becomes an agent in determining the outcome? Do you see what I mean?

[Zing Singh]

Right.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah.

[Zing Singh]

So because you want to win big on an event contract about Trump becoming president, you end up voting for Trump. Yeah. Because you see that the odds are in your favor.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. Or, you know, is this going to happen before a certain, certain date? For example, I might ring the person who's got, you know, who makes the decision on when this decision is going to happen, say I've got a lot of money riding on the, on this, I'll split it with you if you push it out another month or two, for example. You know, I'm not saying this happens, but you know, clearly there's a, there's potential for that.

[Zing Singh]

We've already seen rumors about this kind of stuff. So people were speculating that when the White House press secretary Caroline Levitt abruptly ended the press conference early, right before the 65 minute mark that traders on Kalshee had bet thousands of dollars on. And now important to say neither the White House nor Kalshi have commented on

[Simon Jack]

the on this, but Kalshee argues that when it comes to politics, for example, it actually enhances democratic engagement. Participation can lead to more informed discussion, more informed analyses of election outcomes.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah, I guess if you've got a few grand riding on the outcome of an election, you will be incentivized to keep up with the news.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, for sure.

[Zing Singh]

Well, Kawashi says on its part that it explicitly bans insider trading and investigates suspicious behavior. And you know, there are supporters of these prediction markets. People say that they can be a force for good. So better Forecast, for instance, prediction markets are often actually very accurate in the same way they predicted Trump winning the presidency. They attract people with good information. So you know, that news broke ahead of mainstream outlets during the election. Well, let's not forget Kalshi and other prediction markets are going to make some people a lot of money. In fact, Donald Trump Jr. Actually joined Kalshi's advisory board in 2025.

[Simon Jack]

I see.

[Zing Singh]

And it's definitely made our ballerina a lot of money. In May 2026, it was reported that Luana and Tarek had more than doubled their net worth in just six months after yet another one billion dollar funding round.

[Simon Jack]

Okay, so it is still growing. They've made a ton of money. It's controversial, it's illegal in some countries, but it seems to be doing fantastically well in the U.S. so what we need to ask ourselves is the question, is Luana Lopez Lara good, bad, or just another billionaire? But first we do this fun bit where we score our billionaires on Several categories from 0 to 10 on categories. Wealth, controversy, power and legacy. And we always start because that's the name of the game on this podcast with wealth. What do you reckon?

[Zing Singh]

Well, luanna currently worth 2,5 point billion. So entry level billionaire compared to some of our bigger fish like Elon Musk.

[Simon Jack]

But you went from a million five years ago to a billion. And remember, a billion is a thousand million. So this is a very rapid ascent indeed.

[Zing Singh]

I mean, yeah, it is increasing rapidly. And you know, a lot of people think how she and other prediction markets could be worth a lot more.

[Simon Jack]

We often look about how far they've come. You know, is it a rags to riches story? She came from Brazil, but from a, you know, from a solidly middle class, educated family. She went to the best school, she was a high achiever, she went to mit. So I'm gonna give her just on the sheer speed that she's gone from a million to a billion, I'm gonna give her higher than I would normally just for the absolute number. And I'm gonna give her a six because I think it's incredible how quickly this is grow.

[Zing Singh]

Oh, I think I'd be inclined to agree with a 6 out of 10.

[Simon Jack]

Okay.

[Zing Singh]

Because that amount of growth in her bank account, I mean in how much she's worth. Yeah, that is actually quite exceptional given the fact that she's only 30 this year. Wow.

[Simon Jack]

Okay, six for each of us. Controversy. There's quite a lot to choose from here.

[Zing Singh]

Quite a lot, isn't there?

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, I mean, you know, we've talked a lot about, you know, the controversy about. About issues related to prediction markets. The potential for the amount of money riding on an outcome to influence the outcome itself to become a factor.

[Zing Singh]

You know, the potential for people to get way too involved and develop addiction issues.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, all of those things relate to the business model rather than to Loana herself. I think there's no suggestion that she's behaved improperly.

[Zing Singh]

I do think, however, we are at the early beginnings of Kalshi and other prediction markets. I think it'll take a while for the full ramifications of their existence to become clear.

[Simon Jack]

I think it's too. Yeah, it's quite early to tell. Nevertheless, I'm going to give this a high score. I'm going to give her eight.

[Zing Singh]

Wow. I was. I'm going to give her a seven, actually.

[Simon Jack]

Okay.

[Zing Singh]

Because I think the very existence of prediction markets, I think there's room for them to grow in controversy even more so.

[Simon Jack]

Okay. So you're giving seven with room to grow. Okay. I like it.

[Zing Singh]

To improve.

[Simon Jack]

Improve, if that's the way you want to look at it. Power. I mean, because of her, this new thing exists in the world or, you know, certainly because of her almost unbelievably successful efforts to persuade the authorities that this was a goer and therefore it became a federal kind of all U. S thing. That's pretty amazing. So, you know, without her, you could argue that, you know, maybe this wouldn't exist. Obviously this poly market as well. Her convincing the CFTC that this was not gambling and this was trading, that was a major coup.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah. And bear in mind, at the time they convinced the CFTC they were just a couple of 20 something year olds.

[BILT Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Simon Jack]

And people have been trying for this for decades to try and get this approved and.

[Zing Singh]

No, she did.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah. I mean, interestingly, a partner at Kalshi's, investor Andreessen Horowitzwitz, said, said there are few better trainings for being told no and pushing through anyway than being a professional ballerina. An injury, even a short rest could mean losing your spot. Luanna learned persistence with grace early on and she's carried that same calm confidence into building Kelshi.

[Simon Jack]

So we've sort of mentioned this already, but basically polymarket was not regulated or approved and now it is, thanks to Kelsey and her efforts. So in a way, that market now exists, exist legally because of her. And who knows how powerful this will become. We've talked about some of the potential repercussions. So on power, I think it's you know, I think it's quite high. I think it's a sort of. I'm gonna give it a seven.

[BILT Advertiser]

Ooh.

[Zing Singh]

I think I'm gonna maybe do slightly lower than you and do a 6 out of 10. I just feel like, yes, she made. Essentially made this whole industry from scratch. But would people necessarily recognize her name? I don't think they would, no.

[Simon Jack]

True enough.

[BILT Advertiser]

Enough.

[Simon Jack]

True enough. Okay. Yeah, you're probably right. But we'll stick to our scores. And on Legacy, I think this one, as you've already alluded to, it's too soon to tell. I mean, in a way, you've kind of created a monster here, haven't you? I mean, you created something, could become incredibly powerful, influential, and, you know, I don't know, twin this with AI, you know, where do you end up? You know, everyone's going to be jobless, doing events. Future of humanity being traded by AI. You know, the whole future of the world is going to become a kind of tradable asset.

[Zing Singh]

Well, this is interesting. Y Combinator's partner, Michael Siebel, remember him, said, I don't know that we have funded a company that has as much potential impact on the world as this one.

[Simon Jack]

Yeah. Now for a good. In a good way or pathway. He wasn't clear about that.

[Zing Singh]

Tarek said that he thinks that this will be bigger than crypto.

[Simon Jack]

Wow. Okay. And just, you know, bitcoin alone is worth two and a bit trillion dollars, so we might need a new category for these guys at some point.

[Zing Singh]

Yeah. Well, I think Legacy, I'm going to score them pretty highly. So I think I'm going to give Luanna 8 out of 10.

[Simon Jack]

We'll either look back on this period saying this was one of the most fundamental things to sort of change the way we're informed and events are traded, or we'll look back on this and say, what were we thinking anyway? So the question is, is she good, bad, or just another billionaire? That is up to you. What do you think? Email bad billionaire. That's all. One [e-mail] or drop us a text or WhatsApp at 001917-686-1176 and tell us

[Zing Singh]

what you think and don't forget to include your name as we may read out your message on a future episode.

[Simon Jack]

Indeed, we got an email from Steve from Weymouth in England. The email subject, interesting. Was morality. I just wanted to say we shouldn't be celebrating billionaires. It's morally wrong that 12 people have as much weight, wealth as half the world's population. It's also morally wrong that most billionaires pay less tax proportionately than normal taxpayers. The taxation system should be adjusted so that no one could become a billionaire. You're not the first person to say that. Steve, thanks very much indeed for your email. And it's something that people get in touch with us and is uppermost in a lot of people's minds all the time.

[Zing Singh]

So who do we have on the next episode?

[Simon Jack]

We have one of our rare sports billionaires. Very few from the world of sport has made it into this category and for my money, one of the most graceful, beautiful sports people to watch of all time.

[Zing Singh]

Watching him was actually described by one author as akin to having a religious experience.

[Simon Jack]

It is the Swiss iceberg that is not always an iceberg full of tantrums in his youth. That is Roger Federer.

[Zing Singh]

So if you want to learn more about how Roger became a billionaire, find out in the next episode of Good Bad Billionaire.

[Simon Jack]

Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast produced by Hannah Hufford. The editor is Paul Smith and it's

[Zing Singh]

a BBC Studios production for the BBC World Service. The senior Commissioning Producer is Sarah Green and the Commissioning Editor is John Mannell.

[Simon Jack]

Hi, it's Simon here. If you love Good Bad Billionaire and want more insight into the world of business where I spend most of my time, then you should check out Business Daily from the BBC World Service, which now has a fresh look every day. The podcast takes you into the heart of how corporate money and power shapes our lives. You'll hear what the companies and the people running them are really saying and doing. It looks at all things to do with work and money, from whether influences are taking over public spaces to where the money from World cup tickets really goes. It's colorful, revealing and it explains a lot you may not already know. In the UK you can listen on BBC Sounds and elsewhere you'll find it wherever you get. Good Bad Billionaire

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