It’s the morning of February 12 in Manhattan.

You wake up in your $2,000-a-month shoebox apartment, crank up the heat, and shuffle over to your pantry to check for breakfast ingredients. Then you remember: you heated up your last pack of instant ramen last night at 3 a.m.

Just as you’re weighing whether you should continue spending 20 percent of your income on DoorDash, a friend texts to tell you about the new grocery store called “The Polymarket” on Madison Street, where everything is free. Naturally, you put on a pair of pants, shuffle down to Lower Manhattan, make it inside, and proceed to go absolutely Black Friday Feral on everyone in sight, grabbing everything you can get your indebted-ass hands on. Then, as you shuffle back to your apartment, with overflowing grocery bags of Sour Patch Kids and the first vegetables you’ve touched in weeks tucked under your arms, you pass a signpost advertisement: there’s a $50 free grocery deal — sponsored by some company called “Kalshi” — at an East Village market.

Am I dreaming? How did I get so lucky?

Congratulations, you are caught in the latest crossfire of the prediction market advertising war.