Mia Sato

The prediction market took action against a handful of congressional candidates: Ezekiel Enriquez (a Republican running in Texas); Mark Moran (an Independent in Virginia, who says he meant to get caught); and Matt Klein (a Democrat in Minnesota) for betting in markets related to their political races. Each was banned from the platform for five years and fined modest amounts ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars.

Governor JB Pritzker signed an executive order today dealing specifically with prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. State employees were already barred from using insider information for personal gain, but this executive order specifically bans them from using it to make bets on prediction markets.

After a back-and-forth in court in 2024, it appears that The Onion really might take control of Alex Jones’ Infowars. The New York Times reports that under a new deal, The Onion will strike a licensing deal for Infowars intellectual property (though a judge still needs to approve it). The Onion is already promoting the new project, which will be under the creative direction of Tim Heidecker.

NPR issued prediction market guidance to staff, according to media reporter Ben Mullin, banning employees from betting on news events as well as NPR-related topics (like future Tiny Desk guests — yes, there’s a small market for that).

A new Wired investigation details the lengths Jim Dolan, owner of the New York Knicks and venues like MSG and the Las Vegas Sphere, goes to to spy on perceived enemies, fans, and critics. The vast surveillance apparatus includes dossiers, social media posts, and facial recognition tech.

Muck Rack collected millions of responses from ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI platforms to try to measure which news outlets and writers LLMs tend to cite the most. The data, as reported by Press Gazette, is fascinating: niche and little known publications seem to be showing up frequently (along with people like Jim Cramer at CNBC). It’s an AI visibility rat race out there.

Kalshi will have paid product placement on the biggest news channel in the US, according to The Hollywood Reporter (though Fox reportedly won’t use Kalshi for elections coverage). The network is the latest news organization to jump on the prediction market bandwagon: The Associated Press and CNN have deals, not to mention Kalshi and Polymarket’s vast influencer and advertising operations.