Everything is gambling now: the latest news on prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi

Prediction market exchanges have created an environment where just about any piece of information is potentially monetizable: How well will BTS’s new song perform this week? How hot will Los Angeles get? Will Donald Trump be impeached? Users can wager on all of that and, on some platforms, more gruesome and violent outcomes in the real world.

The rapid rise and expansion of Polymarket and Kalshi have put newsrooms in a strange position. Prediction market evangelists often claim that their odds are more trustworthy and accurate than polls and traditional media — effectively positioning the industry as a replacement for news. At the same time, news organizations from Fox News to The Associated Press are cutting deals with prediction market exchanges, and Polymarket and Kalshi are attempting to align with independent journalists and Substackers through paid placement deals.

Polymarket bets started popping up in Google News alongside legitimate news articles. But now those results aren’t showing, and Google says they were never supposed to. Spokesperson Ned Adriance told The Verge that “Google News is designed to show sources that create content about current issues, events, and important topics, and we have policies for sites to be eligible to appear. This site briefly appeared in Google News in error, and it is no longer surfacing in News.”

The links led directly to betting markets tied to specific news events. For instance, before the results were removed, Futurism searched “will ships transit the strait,” (the Strait of Hormuz), and just below credible sources like The Guardian and Reuters was a Polymarket bet on the specific number of ships that would be allowed to pass.

In mid-March, conspiracy theories swirled claiming Benjamin Netanyahu had been replaced by an AI clone. Though there was no actual proof that the Israeli Prime Minister had been injured or killed, on X this spurred a flurry of posts promoting prediction markets where people bet on whether he would be out of office by March 31st. One newly created Polymarket account in particular caught the attention of bettors: dududududu22, which had purchased more than $177,000 worth of “Yes” shares at 4.7 cents. Surely, only someone with inside knowledge would take such a risky position?

“This makes him possible to get paid of $3,779,000 in case of win,” a post with a link to the Polymarket profile reads. Notably, the post is marked as a paid partnership.

The prediction market platform Kalshi says it’s rolling out new guardrails to “preemptively block” political candidates and athletes from trading in their own markets, as reported earlier by Axios. In addition to blocking political candidates from trading on their own campaigns, Kalshi says its system will also prevent professional and college sports athletes, referees, and personnel from trading in sports they’re involved in:

Kalshi says the move will “proactively address the CFTC’s [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] guidance and Congressional bill proposals to prevent insider trading.”

Prediction markets are working to ingratiate themselves with mainstream news and culture: The Golden Globes broadcast in January was plastered with Polymarket odds, the AP is licensing election data to Kalshi, and a partnership between Polymarket and Substack means more prediction market data in newsletters.

Some prediction market exchanges are now attempting to strike deals with individual reporters. Rick Ellis, an independent entertainment journalist who runs AllYourScreens.com and writes a newsletter on Substack about TV and streaming, told The Verge he received an offer this week.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has a problem: It’s not very good at policing insider trading. And insider trading has become a pressing concern for prediction markets.

Even Kalshi’s recently publicized fines for insider trading — levied against a politician and an employee of YouTube influencer MrBeast — were effectively self-policing. The exchange says it’s opened 200 investigations, frozen some accounts, and had a dozen of its investigations turn into active cases.

Though it was weird to see the Golden Globes partner with Polymarket for its most recent awards show, the collaboration wasn’t shocking given the way that people have begun using prediction markets to gamble on basically anything. Prediction markets are being used to bet on everything from when wars might break out to who will win the Nobel Peace Prize, so why wouldn’t people also be interested in placing wagers on more entertaining and less consequential things, like celebrities’ chances of winning industry accolades?

But this “everything is gambling” culture has given prediction market firms an opportunity to insert themselves into other institutions — like the media — in ways that seem designed to erode people’s understanding of how those institutions function. And this year’s Oscars have shaped up to be another big betting event that normalizes the sportsbook-ification of reality.

Kalshi is facing backlash from its own users after a class action lawsuit was filed last week alleging it failed to pay out as promised for wagers regarding when Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah ​Ali Khamenei would leave or be removed from office. Khamenei was killed in strikes on Iran last month, but according to the lawsuit, Kalshi didn’t implement a “death carveout” until after Khamenei had died.

Meanwhile, Kalshi is reportedly working to attract more women to its platform in an effort to grow its user base. As the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, the percentage of women using Kalshi has doubled over the past ten months, growing from 13 percent to 26 percent of Kalshi’s total users. According to Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara, that shift involves “catering to [women’s] interests and expertise in ways that traditional financial markets haven’t.”

Today on Decoder, let’s talk about prediction markets, which continue to insert themselves into the news cycle and the news itself in increasingly weird, unsettling, and potentially illegal ways.

My guest today is Liz Lopatto, senior reporter at The Verge, who owns what we cheerfully call the chaos beat. Liz has been writing a lot about prediction markets lately and especially why they all seem so intent on being perceived as sources of news — a position that directly incentivizes insider trading. That, in turn, creates a long list of very predictable problems.