In a sign of the times, you can now bet on whether tech honcho Andy Byron, now famous for all the wrong reasons, will step down from his post as CEO of Astronomer, a private data infrastructure company worth more than $1 billion, before the end of the month.
Kalshi, a New York-based financial exchange and prediction market, posted the market on Thursday, July 17 at 10:40 a.m. ET, just about 12 hours after Byron, who is married with kids, was caught on the “Kiss Cam” with the company’s head of human resources, Kristin Cabot.
The market, which has been live for just over 30 hours at the time of writing, has attracted over $750,000 in bets at Kalshi.
You can probably guess where the majority of that money is landing.
At the time of writing, “Yes” (he will step down) is a significant 68 percent favorite with $750,000 being wagered on this market
Unlike sportsbooks, users at prediction markets like Kalshi are trading on the outcome of real events in the world, and prices shift on demand, meaning the more money that comes in on a prediction, the shorter the price will get.
If you convert those prices to standard American odds (while acknowledging it’s not a perfect conversion due to the vig), you roughly get “Yes” as a -212 favorite.
Those are roughly the same odds you can get on the Phillies to beat the Angels on Friday night.
Prediction markets, which allow punters to gamble on future real-world events like elections, the economy, and the weather, have become more and more bold in 2025, hoping to grow to become legitimate competitors to sportsbooks.
Kalshi has made it part of their strategy to gamify moments and stories that capture the public’s attention, no matter how bizarre.
Kalshi has also posted a market for predicting whether or not Coldplay will address the viral moment before the end of the month.
Astronomer said they were investigating the matter on Friday afternoon, over 24 hours after the viral moment exploded on social media.
Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.