The Rise of the Prediction Markets Is As Grim as It Gets
I don't think Dante foresaw "insider trading on the specifics of illegal wars of aggression," but it definitely belongs in one circle or another.
Press releases, in general, are bland affairs. Company Does X, Money Goes to Y, and so on. But sometimes, a press release manages to open a momentary wormhole leading directly to hell.
"Ingesting AP’s live vote data," reads part of an Associated Press release on Monday, "in addition to the native forecasts will provide Kalshi users with a new and improved way to engage with American democracy and the electoral process." There. Now you're in hell too.
Yes, the AP — in theory one of the few remaining you-can-kinda-just-trust-them media outlets out there — announced that "it will provide its U.S. elections results to Kalshi, the world’s largest prediction market." The august organization says it is "meeting audiences where they are," which is, in every possible way, worse.
Most normal people probably havn't even heard of Kalshi or Polymarket — the two dominant players in the arena where you can log on right now and place a wager on, say, how many tornadoes there will be this month, or, oh let's just pick another one at random, "Will the US acquire any new territory" by January of 2029. But in just the last few months really, these "prediction markets" have forced their way into extremely public consciousness. This is extremely grim.
Anyone who watches sports of any kind, or consumes basically any media that might conceivably feature an advertisement, over the last couple of years has been forced to witness the rise of sports gambling in America. Ads for Draft Kings, Fan Duel, and so on absolutely dominate podcasts and live football and basketball broadcasts and plenty more. The normalization of a practice that for literally a century had been conducted in back rooms and frowned upon by polite society has, apparently, paved the way for betting on anything to be considered acceptable.
One of the "trending" markets available on Polymarket as I write this was "ICE shooter charged by March 31?" (Note: I'm not linking to any of these, very much on purpose; obviously. Jesus Christ.) This means you can actually bet on whether Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who shot and killed Renee Good on January 7 in Minneapolis and immediately thereafter called her a "fucking bitch," will face any legal ramifications for doing so within a defined time frame. I feel very comfortable saying that if you do this, betting on either side of the ledger, you are a bad person.
Much ink has already been spilled linking these markets to sports gambling, as I myself just did a couple of paragraphs ago, but there is in fact a huge gap between the two. I recognize this may sound hyperbolic or overwrought, but betting on the Thunder to repeat as NBA champions is different in literal moral character to betting on "Will Israel launch a major ground offensive in Gaza by March 31?" Which is, incredibly, a real thing you can bet on.
This jumped to the fore in the last few days, of course, because of Donald Trump's decision to start an utterly nonsensical and barbaric war with Iran. After the initial strikes a few days ago, it emerged that a few people managed to make hundreds of thousands of dollars off the specific timing of those strikes — I don't think Dante foresaw "insider trading on the specifics of illegal wars of aggression," but it definitely belongs in one circle or another.
As Connecticut Dem Senator Chris Murphy said (notably, on X, the Nazi-adjacent social media platform that, arguably, is as responsible for [gestures out the window] as anything at this point) afterward, "It's insane this is legal."
He's not wrong. There is the micro of it — just like Pete Rose shouldn't be allowed to bet on a baseball game the outcome over which he has significant control, the cavorting satyrs inside Mar-A-Lago whispering sweet war-things in the president's ear should not have access to an essentially unregulated market that lets them cash in on which of those whisperings turns into a fucking Predator drone strike to Tehran — and there's the macro of it, the depravity inherent to a country where betting on foreign regime change and "Jeffrey Epstein confirmed to be alive before 2027?" (I am not kidding, and also still not linking) and the influenza hospitalization rate for next week (seriously, these are real) just kind of sitting out there, unregulated, untended, unaddressed, un-nuked-from-orbit.
"The Associated Press for nearly two centuries has played an essential role in the American democracy as the most authoritative source for accurate results on election night," said David Scott, the vice president for AP Elections, in that otherwise bland press release. "We’re pleased to be working with Kalshi as we work to expand the reach of AP’s trusted elections data." Expanding to where, of course, is left unsaid.
