Gambling as Journalism—Shall We Gamify the News?
Newrooms collaborating with prediction markets will further degrade quality and trust in journalism.
News Organizations Gamble for Survival
The merger of journalism and gambling is among the latest unwelcome trends in corporate news media. Although gambling is considered by many a dangerous and anti-social vice, various forms of it have gained legalization and acceptance across much of the United States. Now, the siren’s call of legalized gaming as a solution to the challenges facing the business of modern journalism is attracting the attention of major media institutions.
In addition to long-term financial threats and technological disruptions, news institutions are now under assault by both internal management and the federal government. In print media, billionaire Jeff Bezos is destroying his own iconic Washington Post, prompting an exodus of high-profile journalists and editors and recently laying off a third of its staff. Meanwhile, the Trump-friendly Ellison family is wrecking CBS News by installing the provocative and inexperienced Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief, who seems intent on turning the once revered organization into a pro-Trump propaganda mouthpiece. These developments are occurring against the backdrop of a fast-moving, authoritarian takeover attempt of the federal government by the Trump regime. Wielding the levers of expensive, frivolous litigation and the FCC’s power over corporate mergers and broadcast licensing rules, the regime is trying to cow the nation’s Fourth Estate into submission or collaboration.
Enter the “prediction market” companies, which are apparently pitching media outlets the promise of enhanced audience engagement. The business proposition is to embed prediction data derived from on-line gaming operations into the news. Contrary to the principles and ethics of good journalism—which require accuracy, independence, and integrity—relying on the bets of gamblers to “predict” the outcome of elections, economic policies, or even wars is a radical departure from reporting the actual news. Deploying crowd-sourced gaming and fantasies at the expense of on-the-ground, informed news journalism can lead audiences to false conclusions. Publishing sensationalistic headlines based on gambling data as “click-bait” to draw in viewers compromises the integrity of news organizations that do so. Unfortunately, these outcomes are likely to prevail as more media outlets choose to promote prediction market probabilities as news.
Struggling Media Meets the Booming Bookies
News organizations have long used polling to spice up the news, especially during election season. The media routinely exploits polling data to depict elections as horse races and supplant in-depth journalism with quick sound bites. Still, good polling can offer real insight into public sentiment. Using statistical models and methods refined over decades, respected institutions such as Gallup, the Pew Research Center, and Quinnipiac University provide news outlets with data-supported information and predictions. However, as cellphones replace landlines (which are central for polling interviews), polls have become seemingly less reliable. Declining confidence in polling results are fueling a search for alternatives.
As they explore new options for forecasting and enhancing audience engagement, news executives seem to be asking questions such as:
Is the news today just too boring? Can we attract and retain viewers and advertisers by making the news more interesting? To satisfy our audience’s desire to know the future, do we need to rely on actual reporters or polling—or can we make our performances and content more exciting and fun by crowd-sourcing gaming and gambling?
Observers of digital news media might have thus noticed the recent appearance of fancy, branded graphics offering viewers “insights” and odds on what might happen in the future. These appealing displays are supplied by companies such as Polymarket and Kalshi, which are on-line enterprises that allow customers to bet on almost any type of event. While these prediction market companies have relied heavily on sports betting to grow their businesses, they have expanded their wares to include an endless variety of options on which to place bets, including elections, entertainment (e.g., the Golden Globes), world events, and finance.
Three economists from the University of Iowa created the first prediction market (over beers) to test whether they could forecast elections more accurately than polls. Their “Iowa Electronic Market” helped birth the prediction market industry, in which clients buy and sell binary (yes/no) contracts much like those used in commodity futures trading. Indeed, the U.S. federal government regulates these companies via the Federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This regulatory structure is distinct from that governing other on-line betting enterprises.
On-line sportsbook makers, including market leaders FanDuel and DraftKings, launched in the U.S. after the Supreme Court paved the way for legalized sports betting in 2018. Like traditional gambling enterprises (e.g., casinos, lotteries, and horse racing), on-line sports betting companies are regulated by state law, and sports gambling is now legal in 39 states. However, many regulators view Polymarket and Kalshi—which are allowed under the CFTC to operate in all 50 states—as unregulated or illegal gambling enterprises rather than simply commodity markets. States, Indian tribes and others have filed at least twenty federal lawsuits against prediction market companies for violating gambling statutes and licensing regulations, and in February users filed a class action suit against Polymarket in New York.
As the fictional character Billy Ray Valentine in the movie Trading Places famously said to the Duke futures brokers:
Engaging what many consider “a couple of bookies” (at least metaphorically) to predict world events for national news organizations—whose mission is to inform the public about what has actually happened—is a recipe for disaster. Journalists are supposed to provide transparency about real events, along with context and insights to help interpret them. Relying on gamers trying to make a quick buck to crystal-ball the future does not advance the public’s understanding of what is happening on the ground.
The Who’s Who of News Gamification
Both tech giants and major news outlets are engaging with prediction market companies. In late 2025, tech platforms X (Twitter), Google, and Yahoo Finance all formed prediction market partnerships. In December 2025 CNN and CNBC partnered with Kalshi, and in 2026 Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones (which includes the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Marketwatch, and investor’s Business Daily) partnered with Polymarket. These deals enable the partner news companies to display prediction market data in their content. Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour explained how data derived from what is essentially an on-line casino can help users know the future:
“We’re making prediction markets data accessible to our users, because it’s a rapidly growing source of real-time insight into collective beliefs about future events.”
Even more curiously, Polymarket’s CEO Shayne Coplan made the following pitch for transparency and accuracy:
“As Polymarket continues to expand, our prediction market data is increasingly relied upon for reliable, transparent, and accurate information.”
Polymarket has also struck a deal with the self-publishing platform Substack, which enables authors to embed Polymarket data and graphics directly into their articles. The mystifying rationale for doing so, according to Polymarket, is that “journalism is better when it’s backed by live markets.”
Some publishers worried about losing internet traffic and retaining eyeballs on their sites have chosen to create their own gambling platforms. In January, Forbes announced their ForbesPredict widget. The tool offers tokens to users who wish to place bets on events related to stories. Forbes hopes that the ability to track the outcome of bets will bring users back to the site, and the scheme allows the company to track user engagement with the platform and generate audience sentiment data. As well, Sports Illustrated has engaged the UK firm Galactic to build its own internal betting platform, SI Predict, in 2025.
The warm embrace of prediction markets by the news media brings the “sportification” of news to staggering new levels. Embedding what amounts to gambling data into the news supercharges the focus on predicting the future rather than enhancing the function of newsrooms and reporters—which is to observe, convey, and contextualize knowledge about events that have already happened. As for the prediction market companies, branding on digital news sites functions as advertising and draws audiences to their betting platforms.
And while on-line sports betting has made its own tremendous inroads into sports news reporting, prediction market companies pose significant competition to sportbooks operations. In December 2025, DraftKings informed investors it was launching its own CFTC-regulated “DraftKings Predictions” platform, and in the face of falling share prices the company announced in February a reorganization and layoff of an unspecified number of employees.
Examples of the Gamification of News
In February 2026, CNN Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten displayed Kalshi data in a report on Gavin Newsom’s chances of becoming the Democratic presidential nominee in 2028. Enten described the change in odds over three months as “evidence” that Newsom is “definitely flailing”, even though the California governor has yet to announce a Presidential campaign. Enten then cited the number of Google searches on Newsom’s name to support the Kalshi numbers. While partnering with Kalshi may provide benefits to CNN, it is difficult to see how such flippant, irrational performances count as journalism or build trust among CNN’s viewers.
Rupert Murdoch’s esteemed Wall Street Journal has also relied on prediction markets as a substitute for genuine reporting. In November, 2025 it reported:
Bettors on Polymarket See Hassett as Frontrunner for Next Fed Chair “Traders on Polymarket have stepped up wagers on President Trump appointing Kevin Hassett the next chair of the Federal Reserve, after Bloomberg News reported he is the frontrunner to replace Fed Chair Jerome Powell.” And in further engaged prediction markets as journalism “Who Could Trump Pick as the Next Fed Chair?”
Promoting a story about the response of Polymarket traders to a competing media outlet’s reporting is a troubling editorial decision by the WSJ. Since the Wall Street Journal’s parent company (Dow Jones) struck its deal with Polymarket, the WSJ has cited prediction market odds for all sorts of matters, including Federal Reserve leadership, Trump’s designs on Greenland, the government shutdown, the State of the Union speech, and more—often without explicitly mentioning the Journal’s business relationship with Polymarket in this coverage. Even more troubling is the Journal’s editorial decision to normalize betting on potential bombing campaigns by the U.S. by covering prediction market activity as though it was actual news.
The Shady Nature of Prediction Markets
Polymarket operates on a cryptocurrency platform using the Polygon blockchain (notably Kalshi is not crypto-based). Cryptocurrency suffers from a dark reputation as a vehicle for money-laundering, fraud, and other criminal activity. While this shady characterization does not implicate Polymarket or cryptocurrencies themselves in any wrong-doing, news companies engaging with the crypto-supported platforms might consider exposure to reputational risk.
Also of concern is the potential for manipulation by anonymous traders (or crypto wallets) making bets large enough to move the odds. For example, just before the 2024 presidential election an anonymous trader (now known as Theo) wagered about $30 million of crypto on Polymarket that Trump would win, dramatically increasing the odds on Trump. Also, concerns over insider trading reached a fever pitch in January when a trader placed a $32,000 bet on Polymarket that the Maduro government would fall, despite the low probabilities forecasted for the event. The bet was placed shortly before the U.S. attacked Venezuela and captured Maduro, after which the trader netted $400,000. The incident raised serious questions about advance insider knowledge. Given these vulnerabilities, prediction markets hardly seem like a reputable source for news outlets projecting elections or other sensitive events.
Additionally, investors, advisors, and even regulators of prediction markets companies are far from neutral. Among them is the right-wing mogul and anti-democracy Peter Thiel, whose venture capital company Founder’s Fund was the lead investor in Polymarket. As well, in 2025 Donald Trump Jr.’s VC firm 1789 Capital invested millions in Polymarket and joined their advisory board. Don Jr. is also a strategic advisor to Kalshi. Perhaps most significantly, the prediction market industry benefits from a friendly regulatory environment under Donald Trump and CFTC Chair Michael Selig. In February 2026, Selig filed an amicus brief in a case pitting state regulators against prediction markets in which the U.S. government essentially argued that prediction markets should not be regulated by state gambling laws.
Outlook: A Dangerous, Self-inflicted Gamble
Independent news institutions provide a bulwark against autocracy and authoritarianism by informing the public’s decisions and holding government accountable. Democracy itself hinges on the public’s ability to see what its government is doing and to understand the meaning and impact of both local and distant events. Good self-governance relies on an educated and knowledgeable electorate capable of seeing the truth and acting upon that reality.
Promoting prediction market data as news detracts audience attention from real world events and refocuses it on gaming and prognostication. This revision of the newsroom focus undermines the true mission of the free press—namely to witness, document, and contextualize actual events for the people of the world. Degrading journalism by leveraging gambling operations to augment reporting only leads us further into the darkness—all while the prediction industry rakes in profits and encourages the audience to look away and just play games.
The Media and Democracy Project will continue to track which news organizations choose to partner with prediction markets, and which choose to respect their readers and viewers by not doing so. Our goal is to inform audiences about these practices and to encourage news organizations to prioritize their journalistic integrity and credibility over their drive to increase profits. We strongly recommend that news organizations show respect for their audiences and formulate policies that prohibit or—at the very least—constrain the integration of prediction market data in journalism.
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We could always cut out the middleman and go direct.
The sports gambling industry is bad enough. Very detrimental to players' motivations. But gambling on news is even more ethically abhorent.