A weekly newsletter on power and the press Happy Sunday! When watching SportsCenter, or a game, I occasionally start droning on to my son about Pete Rose. That’s because my formative years of baseball fandom were shaped in part by the Pete Rose betting scandal and movies revisiting the Black Sox scandal. And despite gambling now being baked into sports coverage, with leagues and media companies in business with sportsbooks, I’m still struck as betting lines flash across the screen. Or by the umpteenth ad for DraftKings. I was thinking about how betting has swallowed sports media this week while reporting on prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi becoming increasingly enmeshed in coverage of politics and world affairs, as people wager on, say, who’ll be the first to drop out of Donald Trump’s cabinet, among thousands of other potential questions. And now, with CNN, CNBC and Dow Jones striking deals with prediction markets, I’d say the chances are high that Kalshi and Polymarket percentages pop up more and more in coverage. The ever-shifting odds can be fascinating to watch from a news junkie’s perspective, but also disturbing when you consider the ramifications of topics being bet on, such as whether the president will invoke the Insurrection Act. That drastic step would surely only inflame an already chaotic situation, as masked agents seem to be running wild through Minneapolis. We’re in the early stages of how prediction markets will impact our understanding of politics and culture, with Polymarket’s placement during the Golden Globes broadcast likely just the beginning of such tie-ins. As for journalism, Vox’s Astead Herndon had an insightful take this week on X. “One impact of everything turning into a prediction market is the loss of curiosity. Especially in media and among journalists,” he wrote. “All everyone does now is guess what’s gonna happen. It’s so boring. To ask why is much harder/more rare/more valuable.” Let’s keep asking why. Michael Calderone 
What are the odds?The stunning U.S. strike on Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month was a momentous event, and for one mysterious Polymarket trader, a very lucrative one. Someone bet on Maduro’s ouster just hours before 
$1 for 14 days, then $4/week (billed annually at $199) or $6.25/week (billed every 4 weeks at $24.99). |
