In this episode of Professional Punters, we sit down with Evan Semet, a prediction-market trader and quant who has built real edge in some of the strangest and most inefficient corners of modern markets. Evan studied computer science, mathematics, and economics at Vanderbilt before working across options trading, quantitative research, and systematic execution at firms including Belvedere, the Cutler Group, J.P. Morgan, GTS, and a family office. He eventually left a traditional quant seat to trade prediction markets full time, building his own statistical-modeling and execution stack to price markets across Kalshi and Polymarket. He was recent recruited by a major market marker to run their prediction markets operation. Evan made low five-digits a day market-making fifteen-minute crypto binaries, with Sharpe ratios in the 40-50 range. He also found major edges in election arbitrage, AI model leaderboard markets, and insider-looking prediction-market flow. This conversation is about what it actually takes to find edge in prediction markets: the modeling, the execution, the weird rules, the toxic flow, the oracle disputes, the bankroll constraints, the trades that worked, the trades that stopped working, and the losses that teach you what the rules really mean. 00:00 — Intro 01:23 — From Vanderbilt to the Trading Floor 02:16 — Why He Quit Coding for Prediction Markets 02:55 — His First Kalshi Account 03:41 — The 2024 Election Arbitrage 05:27 — 2% a Week, 170% Annualized 07:33 — Going Fully Systematic 08:56 — The 538 Blow-Up 11:11 — Why Bonding Actually Works 13:40 — Scraping Hugging Face for an Edge 14:47 — The Gemini Surprise 16:38 — The $60k Payday 18:03 — The Strange Rules of Mention Markets 20:17 — When a Market Wasn't "Properly Televised" 21:20 — His Bread-and-Butter Bitcoin Trade 22:41 — Beating the Crypto Market Makers 24:41 — The Final-Seconds Edge 26:58 — Reading Toxic Flow 29:55 — $12k a Day at Peak 31:22 — Life as a Solo Trader 33:12 — The "Professional Punter" Account 34:12 — The $35k Loss: Jokes Don't Count 36:16 — Inside the UMA Oracle 39:03 — Why Elections Are So Inefficient 40:41 — Decoding the Big Election Wins 44:24 — How Vote-Counting Fools the Crowd 45:35 — Recruited Through Discord 46:34 — Solo Trader vs. Trading Firm 48:09 — It's Not Free Money Professional Punters is presented by Freeport Markets: Freeport lets users trade 24/7, weekends included, with no KYC and up to 200x leverage across stocks, indices, commodities, crypto, rates, and more, with access to pre-IPO exposure in companies like OpenAI & Anthropic. For traders who already follow sharp sources across Twitter, Substack, hedge fund filings, corporate insider activity, and political trading disclosures, Freeport uses AI to read the sources they trust, connect the dots across markets, and surface trade ideas as narratives develop. About the Host: Lihong Wang is the founder and CEO of Freeport Markets. Before starting Freeport, he traded discretionary semiconductor names at quantitative market-making firms including Jane Street and IMC Trading, building both systematic and discretionary strategies across equities. Lihong graduated from Duke with a degree in mathematics and statistics, and has raised over $2.5M to build Freeport from investors including Y Combinator, Alliance DAO, and Informed Ventures. For more of his long-form research, visit freeportlogbook.substack.com. Disclaimer: This episode is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute investment, financial, legal, accounting, or tax advice. Nothing discussed is a recommendation or solicitation to buy, sell, or hold any security, token, contract, or other asset. Trading and investing involve substantial risk, including the possible loss of principal. Any figures or trades mentioned are anecdotal, approximate, and not indicative of future results.
