Prediction markets don’t need luck, they are having an incredible month without it. Yesterday, the National Hockey League announced a multi-year deal with Polymarket and Kalshi that will allow both startups to use the league’s data and logos on their platforms.

The deal marks the first partnership between a major US sports league and prediction markets, giving a pro sports seal of approval to upstarts that are challenging traditional sportsbooks.

A big game

Kalshi and Polymarket now have the NHL’s logo plastered all over their sites, but even without official recognition, they offer bets on other sports leagues’ games by using vague titles like “Pro football champion” and listing cities instead of specific team names.

And while prediction markets let users bet on everything from how much the Fed will raise interest rates to when celebrities will break up, sports bettors flock to them:

• Kalshi and Polymarket’s trading volume breached $2 billion for the first time last week following the start of the NFL season, eclipsing the previous volume record set during the US presidential election in 2024.
• Sports-related bets accounted for $867 million of that trading on Kalshi and $415 million on Polymarket.

Better odds: Unlike traditional sportsbooks that are subject to a patchwork of local gambling regulations across the US, prediction markets—which facilitate betting contracts between users rather than acting as “the house” you bet against—are considered financial exchanges and regulated federally by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That’s allowed them to offer sports bets in states where gambling is illegal, leaving gaming commissions and state regulators pretty peeved. They’re tangling with prediction markets in court, and legal experts ultimately expect the companies’ ongoing ability to offer sports bets to be determined by the Supreme Court.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em: This week, DraftKings acquired Railbird Technologies, a licensed prediction market exchange.

Everyone wants a piece of predictions: Kalshi is reportedly receiving funding offers that value it at more than $10 billion. And, the owner of the NYSE recently took a $2 billion stake in Polymarket.—MM

Tesla profit falls despite record sales. The good news for Tesla: It sold a record number of cars last quarter as customers raced to get new EVs ahead of the expiration of a government tax credit, pushing its revenue up 12% from the same time last year to $28 billion. The bad news: Its costs soared too, leaving its profit 37% down compared to a year earlier. Nonetheless, Elon Musk looked toward the future, stressing to investors that he expects to build AI, humanoid robots, and fully self-driving cars. And despite the profit setback, Musk stressed that he should still get a new pay package that would give him $1 trillion and more control of the company, saying, “I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army if I don’t have, at least, influence over it.”

US expands campaign against accused drug boats to the Pacific. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a video on X of a strike on a boat in the Eastern Pacific that he said was “known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling.” The strike, which killed two people on board, was the eighth one the Trump administration has carried out on a boat allegedly carrying drugs, but all the others were in the Caribbean Sea. Legal experts and members of Congress have questioned whether the strikes are lawful since they began last month, but the administration says it is relying on a legal opinion that it can treat drug traffickers like enemy combatants in a war rather than as criminals.

Meta cuts ~600 jobs in its AI unit. While AI jobs might seem like they should be the safest jobs out there, Meta is conducting mass layoffs in its AI unit even as it pours billions into the tech. But it’s not a sign the company is backing off on AI. Rather, Axios reports that Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t satisfied with its longstanding AI efforts, and has been reshaping its push by starting a new lab and luring talent from competitors with headline-making multimillion-dollar compensation packages. Reducing the size of the team will help get decisions made more efficiently, Meta’s chief AI officer Alexandr Wang—who was recently brought in himself through Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in his company—wrote in a memo to staff.—AR

Corporate America might need a bigger rake for all the cash that’s coming its way. Though only 13% of S&P 500 companies have reported Q3 earnings so far, more than 85% of them have surpassed Wall Street’s expectations—the largest share to do so in over four years, per Bloomberg Intelligence.

The upbeat earnings calls serve as an economic vibe check (albeit an incomplete one) that Wall Street and policy wonks are watching extra closely, since government data is limited as a result of the ongoing shutdown.

So, who’s rolling in it?

• General Motors boosted its earnings projections for 2025 from $10 billion–$12.5 billion to $12 billion–$13 billion. The automaker took a hit from tariffs and EV scalebacks, but enjoyed the best sales of its Silverado truck and Escalade SUV in the first three quarters since 2018 and 2007, respectively.
• Coca-Cola’s Q3 net sales reached $12.46 billion, up 5% from the previous year. Units sold jumped by 1% from 2024 despite tariff-induced price hikes. The company was buoyed by growth in lower-calorie drink options like Coke Zero, though it said lower-income consumers are spending less.
• Non-consumer brands—like oil services provider Halliburton, life sciences giant Danaher, and banking behemoth JPMorgan—also delivered blowout earnings.

This might ease some concerns…that stocks are overvalued amid the AI investment frenzy (which some call a bubble) and the recent collapse of two auto companies due to debt issues. Still, while corporate coffers fill up, the job market is looking weak.—SK

Imagine if Dr. Frankenstein had people in the room with him yelling, “Nooooooooo!” That’s kind of what happened yesterday, when a group of prominent professionals signed a petition urging a temporary ban on the development of AI that surpasses human cognition until there’s “broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably, and strong public buy-in.”

Hundreds of public figures in AI research, business, politics, and culture endorsed the statement, which mentions concerns about “losses of freedom, civil liberties, dignity, and control,” plus “national security risks and even potential human extinction.”

Notable signatories include:

• Computer scientists Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, who are considered the “godfathers” of modern AI because their deep learning discoveries underpin much of the tech.
• Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, and World Economic Forum Interim Co-Chair Andre Hoffmann.
• Two top-ranking national security officials from George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s administrations.
• Trump allies Steve Bannon and Glenn Beck.
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Will.I.am, Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

But…the nonprofit that organized this petition penned a similar open letter in 2023 (which Elon Musk signed) that didn’t seem to slow AI’s rapid roll. Since then, the industry has plunged billions more dollars into the quest for superintelligence, which Sam Altman aims to achieve by 2030.—ML

Your fancy new wallet may be saving the Everglades. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said yesterday that the removal of invasive Burmese Pythons to protect the fragile ecosystem of the Everglades tripled this year, after the state partnered with a company that uses the snakes’ skins for leather. Per DeSantis:

• Florida began working with Inversa Leathers last year, and it has sped up the removal. Between May and July of this year, 1,022 pythons were removed—compared to 343 during that same period in 2024.
• In July alone, 748 snakes were removed, which is more than the entire previous year’s total.
• The state invested $2 million in the program this year, and DeSantis is seeking continued annual funding for it.

As for Inversa, its website features an array of python leather products perfect for anyone trying to ape Taylor Swift’s Reputation era style. The company also makes leather from the skins of other invasive species, including silverfin and lionfish.—AR