Lost $40k on prediction markets. Almost wish it had been options instead

Recently got into prediction markets through Kalshi and Robinhood. I started betting on tennis, baseball, and even World Cup matches. I know next to nothing about any of those sports. Maybe some basic knowledge, but that's about it.

Like options, the first one's always free. I won my first few bets, got overconfident, kept increasing my size... and then it all downhill from there.

I'm now down about $40k from prediction markets alone.

What makes it sting even more is realizing these losses generally aren't tax-deductible the way my stock and options losses would be. I had some solid realized gains from stocks/options this year, so if this had been a $40k loss in my brokerage account, at least it could've offset some of those gains.

Instead, I basically paid full price for an expensive lesson.

And yes, the cope is real: part of me keeps thinking, "Imagine if I'd YOLO'd $40k into 0DTEs instead. It either would've gone to zero or somehow turned into $100k–$200k."

Anyway... enough coping. Expensive reminder not to gamble on things I know nothing about.