Welcome to the Wall Street Week newsletter, bringing you stories of capitalism about things you need to know, but even more things you need to think about.  I'm David Westin, and this week we told the stories of the world of prediction markets and of the business of immigration detention. If you’re not yet a subscriber, sign up here for this newsletter. If you're not yet a subscriber, sign up here for this newsletter.

Pricing the Future

The parent company of the NYSE is looking to invest some $2 billion in Polymarket, the crypto-based betting platform, giving it a $9 billion valuation. Special contributor Larry Summers of Harvard says he uses these markets for futures contracts tied to specific events. 

"These are a very useful tool" because it allows people "to get access to a kind of consensus opinion where people aren't just talking, but they have to put their money where their mouth is,” Summers said.

That may sound a lot like what we use polls for. But both Summers and Scott Rasmussen, founder of Rasmussen reports, say that, as useful as they are, these prediction markets aren’t going to replace polls.

ICE Detentions Bring ‘Big Money’ 

President Trump came back to office with a promise to detain, and deport, tens of thousands who were in the US unlawfully. At this point, about 60,000 are being held, with estimates the number will go higher.

Margo Schlanger, the official responsible for civil rights and liberties for the Department of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, explains that the government doesn't have room for all the people it's detaining, so DHS "contracts with other entities, such as counties and, most often, private companies. And those companies run the facilities instead."

That means that there's a growing business in private incarceration, involving "big money at a high rate of return," she said. Earlier this year, Congress appropriated $45 billion for building new immigration centers.

The largest owner-operator of private incarceration facilities in the US is CoreCivic. Its CEO, Damon Hininger, explained the history of his company and contracting out facilities like his — as well as how they've adapted to the new world created by large ICE detentions.

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