The 13-Year-Old Prediction Markets Prodigy Making Waves in Finance

Eli Goldfine, a braced middle schooler from Westchester County, New York, has become an unlikely fixture in the booming prediction markets industry—a space already dominated by unusually young founders and users. At just 13, he's operating on play-money platforms like Manifold Markets, launching his own Substack newsletter called "Bayesian Supercycle," and conducting interviews with industry veterans that rival coverage from established business outlets. His breakout moment came when he landed an exclusive interview with ex-Kalshi employees about their new investment fund, 5c(c) Capital, garnering him over 300 followers on X and catching the attention of prediction markets firms.

Eli's entry into the space was organic—he discovered Polymarket, then graduated to Manifold where he honed his forecasting skills by creating markets on everything from student government elections at his school (where he roughly tripled his initial investment before the school shut it down) to whether he'd get an A on an essay about organ markets. His intellectual diet includes economists Tyler Cowen and Robin Hanson, thought leaders in prediction market advocacy. Beyond the speculative side, he's building technical infrastructure—he's developed a website with tools for testing automated market makers and recently chatted with Microsoft Research staffers about the project.

What's striking is how his parents—his father a commercial real estate developer, his mother a psychologist—have stayed hands-off. His dad Evan emphasized they're "not pushing at all," just supportive of Eli's genuine interest. The prediction markets industry, which skews young (Polymarket's founder and Kalshi's cofounders are in their late 20s), has tentatively embraced him despite obvious legal haziness. When he asked 5c(c) Capital co-founders for a summer internship, they joked about "child labor laws." Yet multiple prediction markets companies have already offered him summer positions, and Thrive Capital reached out through industry connections. For now, Eli is juggling homework (which he does on the bus), astronomy (his other passion—he's interviewed optical designers for ScopeTrader magazine), and weighing an invitation to a prediction markets conference in Switzerland, pending parental approval.