Welcome to Monday’s Washington Secrets, after a busy weekend for the capital’s political elite. We try to explain the point of Polymarket’s “Situation Room,” laugh with (not at) Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s “perfect smoky eyes,” and reveal how the British prime minister is sticking with the same playbook on how to manage Donald Trump …
Jacob Shamberger looks like a man who hasn’t slept.
The night before, he was scurrying around a bar in Washington, trying to restart dozens of monitors and revive Polymarket’s “Situation Room” in time to stop dozens of journalists waiting outside in the rain from writing that the prediction market’s pop-up bar was a flop.
“There was a power outage about an hour before we actually opened the doors,” he said wearily on Saturday morning. “And we have 80 TVs in here. They all have different remotes.”
By Saturday morning, Shamberger, who runs operations at Polymarket, was able to laugh about the chaos, describing how each of the screens had been custom-programmed to scroll through different markets, from Republican 2028 nominee odds to the chances of the U.S. national debt exceeding $40 trillion.
It was meant to be the ultimate nerd’s fantasy. A chance to “monitor the situation,” as the company put it, with a real-time flow of information beamed into a K Street bar.
In the end, the VIP launch was just a party in a bar filled with blank screens.
But by the next morning, there were plenty of situations to be monitored.
Four-foot screens behind the bar scrolled slowly through the Republican presidential nominee market. It showed Tom Brady, Pete Hegseth, and Steve Bannon all tied for 29th, with a 0.7% chance. (Surely Hegseth is worth a few dollars at that price.)
A giant rotating globe pulsed with orange and red blobs, flashing up different markets: “Will crude oil hit $100 by the end of March?” (If you had bought yes stakes in that, you would have made a chunk of change.)
Prediction markets have become big business. They allow traders to buy contracts with a value that depends on future events.
So if you think Marco Rubio will be the 2028 nominee, say, then you can buy a contract for 27 cents. If he wins, the contract winds up being worth a dollar. If he loses, it crashes to zero.
And, if you are someone who just wants to know what is happening in the race, then you can conclude that traders think he has a 27% chance of winning. Vice President JD Vance remains the front-runner with a 37% chance.
Shamberger said the idea for the Situation Room came from the way Polymarket’s social media accounts get tagged online.
“Whenever something in the world is happening, something’s changing, people tag us because they’re saying, ‘Go look at Polymarket because there’s the actual live odds,’” he said. “We wanted to take that from being more of a digital experience, and bring it in person, make it a real, physical location where people can come and see all the things that are happening.”
Or not happening. One big screen showed a “nothing ever happens index.” It featured improbably happenings, such as the U.S. invading a Latin American country by the end of the year. (Although Secrets suspects it is perhaps getting more likely with every passing day.)
Another reporter was checking out the joint at the same time as Secrets. It would be a shame, she said, if all the coverage focused on the launch situation.
“That rather misses the point,” she said.
But what is the point? What is the Situation Room really for? Is it nothing more than a three-day PR stunt? A quick way to get nerdy D.C. journalists inside?
Does it play into the current debate about how to regulate prediction markets? Lawmakers are mulling whether they are really just a way to avoid legislation that makes it illegal to bet on current affairs, while allegations of insider trading swirl. Platforms such as Polymarket and its rival Kalshi argue they are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as futures markets.
Or will the Situation Room become a more permanent place for information junkies to meet?
Shamberger, in a line deployed frequently through the weekend, said: “I think we’ll go wherever the situation needs to be monitored.”
Once upon a time, the only situation that needed monitoring in a bar was the level of beer in one’s glass.
Things only became clear when Secrets ran into Jacob Dylan Walters, a 32-year-old software engineer. He had stopped off to monitor the situation with a couple of friends.
He gets his news now, he explained, from prediction markets. Why get it from a journalist pontificating what comes next in Iran when you can check any of Polymarket’s 250 markets on Iran.
“I use Polymarket to sort of understand what I think is going to happen next,” he said.
Wondering if the U.S. military will back the Iranian opposition by the end of the month? Traders give it less than a 5% chance.
Nuclear deal by the end of next year? Forty-three percent.
When will the military operation end? Not by the end of the month. The market gives it a 91% chance of carrying on into April.
Although even Walters was slightly bemused by the blinking banks of screens and the information overload.
“I kind of view it as an art piece,” he said. “This is sort of a commentary on the zeitgeist, I would say.”
‘Singe, never burn’
Sarah Huckabee Sanders was one of two keynote speakers at Saturday’s Gridiron Club dinner. It was her first appearance at one of Washington’s big political galas since 2018, when she was clearly upset by comedian Michelle Wolf, who roasted Trump’s then-White House press secretary.
“She burns facts, and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye,” was the line that caused uproar.
So how would Sanders, now governor of Arkansas (and a possible 2028 presidential runner), handle Saturday’s dinner and memories of that roast?
Jackie Calmes, president of the Gridiron and a Los Angeles Times columnist, did her best to put Sanders at ease.
“To be fair, it wasn’t funny,” she said about the original joke. “In fact, it was sexist.
“But really, all the joke needed was a good editor. It should have said, ‘The White House burns facts and then uses the ash to create JD Vance’s perfect smoky eye.’”
Secrets was in the audience and agreed that the joke was too good to hear once.
Sanders delivered pretty much the same line an hour later.
“And since that night, I’m proud to say that color has really taken off. In fact, it’s the exact same thing worn by Vice President JD Vance,” she said, to a bigger laugh than the first time around.
To the uninitiated, the Gridiron is the elder aunt of the more raucous correspondents’ dinner. Only the very grandest reporters are members. The opening address is delivered in darkness, and the motto for the night is “singe, never burn.”
One reason speakers can get away with the same joke is the age of attendees, which skews to a time when news was delivered on doorsteps, and they may struggle to remember (or hear) punchlines.
As Calmes herself noted.
“I was shocked to learn that my immediate predecessors, Dan Balz and Judy Woodruff, were the two oldest presidents in the club’s long history,” she said.
“So I stand before you as the leader of what amounts to a youth movement. Never mind that next week I have cataract surgery.”
The night’s other speaker was Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL), whose recent weight loss has sparked speculation that he is another possible 2028 runner.
“And if you’re seeing me in person for the very first time, yes, I’m the guy who put the ‘gov’ in Wegovy,” he said as he introduced himself.
Trump’s Sunday calls
Guess what? The British prime minister spoke to Trump on Sunday afternoon. By Secrets’s reckoning, that is the third Sunday in a row that they have talked.
And if you are a subscriber to Secrets, you know exactly what is going on: The Brits have worked out that Sunday afternoon is the perfect time to catch the president. You’ll find him on the golf course or in the clubhouse, relaxed and in a good frame of mind.
Remember, you read it here last week.
Lunchtime reading
‘When will it end?’ The ‘elevator pitch’ oil executives and diplomats are making to the White House in Houston: Administration officials will be getting an earful when they turn up to largest gathering of energy industry officials in the world this week.
Thirst traps over think tanks: Democrats want hotter candidates on the ballot: speaks for itself. Secrets endorses this.
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