America Is Slow-Walking Into a Polymarket Disaster - The AtlanticSkip to contentSite NavigationThe AtlanticPopularLatestNewslettersSectionsPoliticsIdeasFictionTechnologySciencePhotoEconomyCulturePlanetGlobalBooksAI WatchdogHealthEducationProjectsFeaturesFamilyEventsWashington WeekProgressNational SecurityExplore The Atlantic ArchivePlay The Atlantic GamesListen to Podcasts and ArticlesThe Print EditionLatest IssuePast IssuesGive a GiftSearch The AtlanticQuick LinksAudioCrossword PuzzleMagazine ArchiveYour SubscriptionPopularLatestNewslettersSign InSubscribeTechnologyAmerica Is Slow-Walking Into a Polymarket DisasterWhy is the media obsessed with prediction markets?By Saahil DesaiIllustration by The AtlanticJanuary 17, 2026 ShareSave For the past week, I’ve found myself playing the same 23-second CNN clip on repeat. I’ve watched it in bed, during my commute to work, at the office, midway through making carrot soup, and while brushing my teeth. In the video, Harry Enten, the network’s chief data analyst, stares into the camera and breathlessly tells his audience about the gambling odds that Donald Trump will buy any of Greenland. “The people who are putting their money where their mouth is—they are absolutely taking this seriously,” Enten says. He taps the giant touch screen behind him and pulls up a made-for-TV graphic: Based on how people were betting online at the time, there was a 36 percent chance that the president would annex Greenland. “Whoa, way up there!” Enten yells, slapping his hands together. “My goodness gracious!” The ticker at the bottom of the screen speeds through other odds: Will Gavin Newsom win the next presidential election? 19 percent chance. Will Viktor Orbán be out as the leader of Hungary before the end of the year? 48 percent chance.These odds were pulled from Kalshi, which hilariously claims not to be a gambling platform: It’s a “prediction market.” People go to sites such as Kalshi and Polymarket—another big prediction market—in order to put money down on a given news event. Nobody would bet on something that they didn’t believe would happen, the thinking goes, and so the markets are meant to forecast the likelihood of a given outcome.Listen: Prediction markets and the “suckerification” crisis, with Max ReadPrediction markets let you wager on basically anything. Will Elon Musk father another baby by June 30? Will Jesus return this year? Will Israel strike Gaza tomorrow? Will the longevity guru Bryan Johnson’s next functional sperm count be greater than “20.0 M/ejac”? These sites have recently boomed in popularity—particularly among terminally online young men who trade meme stocks and siphon from their 401(k)s to buy up bitcoin. But now prediction markets are creeping into the mainstream. CNN announced a deal with Kalshi last month to integrate the site’s data into its broadcasts, which has led to betting odds showing up in segments about Democrats possibly retaking the House, credit-card interest rates, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. At least twice in the past two weeks, Enten has told viewers about the value of data from people who are “putting their money where their mouth is.”On January 7, the media giant Dow Jones announced its own collaboration with Polymarket and said that it will begin integrating the site’s odds across its publications, including The Wall Street Journal. CNBC has a prediction-market deal, as does Yahoo Finance, Sports Illustrated, and Time. Last week, MoviePass announced that it will begin testing a betting platform. On Sunday, the Golden Globes featured Polymarket’s forecasts throughout the broadcast—because apparently Americans wanted to know whether online gamblers favored Amy Poehler or Dax Shepard to win Best Podcast.Media is a ruthless, unstable business, and revenue streams are drying up; if you squint, you can see why CNN or Dow Jones might sign a contract that, after all, provides its audience with some kind of data. On air, Enten cites Kalshi odds alongside Gallup polls and Google searches—what’s the difference? “The data featured through our partnership with Kalshi is just one of many sources used to provide context around the stories or topics we are covering and has no impact on editorial judgment,” Brian Poliakoff, a CNN spokesperson, told me in a statement. Nolly Evans, the Journal’s digital general manager, told me that Polymarket provides the newspaper’s journalists with “another way to quantify collective expectations—especially around financial or geopolitical events.” In an email, Jack Suh, a Kalshi spokesperson, told me that the company’s partnerships are designed to inform the public, not to encourage more trading. Polymarket declined to comment.The problem is that prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes as much about gambling as about the event itself. This kind of thing has already happened to sports, where the language of “parlays” and “covering the spread” has infiltrated every inch of commentary. ESPN partners with DraftKings to bring its odds to SportsCenter and Monday Night Football; CBS Sports has a betting vertical; FanDuel runs its own streaming network. But the stakes of Greenland’s future are more consequential than the NFL playoffs.The more that prediction markets are treated like news, especially heading into another election, the more every dip and swing in the odds may end up wildly misleading people about what might happen, or influencing what happens in the real world. Yet it’s unclear whether these sites are meaningful predictors of anything. After the Golden Globes, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan excitedly posted that his site had correctly predicted 26 of 28 winners, which seems impressive—but Hollywood awards shows are generally predictable. One recent study found that Polymarket’s forecasts in the weeks before the 2024 election were not much better than chance.These markets are also manipulable. In 2012, one bettor on the now-defunct prediction market Intrade placed a series of huge wagers on Mitt Romney in the two weeks preceding the election, generating a betting line indicative of a tight race. The bettor did not seem motivated by financial gain, according to two researchers who examined the trades. “More plausibly, this trader could have been attempting to manipulate beliefs about the odds of victory in an attempt to boost fundraising, campaign morale, and turnout,” they wrote. The trader lost at least $4 million but might have shaped media attention of the race for less than the price of a prime-time ad, they concluded.A billionaire congressional candidate can’t just send a check to Quinnipiac University and suddenly find himself as the polling front-runner, but he can place enormous Polymarket bets on himself that move the odds in his favor. Or consider this hypothetical laid out by the Stanford political scientist Andrew Hall: What if, a month before the 2028 presidential election, the race is dead even between J. D. Vance and Mark Cuban? Inexplicably, Vance’s odds of winning surge on Kalshi, possibly linked to shady overseas bets. CNN airs segment after segment about the spike, turning it into an all-consuming national news story. Democrats and Republicans point fingers at each other, and no one knows what’s really going on. Such a scenario is “plausible—maybe even likely—in the coming years,” Hall writes. It doesn’t help that the Trump Media and Technology Group, the owner of the president’s social-media platform, Truth Social, is set to launch its own platform, Truth Predict. (Donald Trump Jr. is an adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket.)The irony of prediction markets is that they are supposed to be a more trustworthy way of gleaning the future than internet clickbait and half-baked punditry, but they risk shredding whatever shared trust we still have left. The suspiciously well-timed bets that one Polymarket user placed right before the capture of Nicolás Maduro may have been just a stroke of phenomenal luck that netted a roughly $400,000 payout. Or maybe someone with inside information was looking for easy money. Last week, when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt abruptly ended her briefing after 64 minutes and 30 seconds, many traders were outraged, because they had predicted (with 98 percent odds) that the briefing would run past 65 minutes. Some suspected, with no evidence, that Leavitt had deliberately stopped before the 65-minute mark to turn a profit. (When I asked the White House about this, the spokesperson Davis Ingle told me in a statement, “This is a 100% Fake News narrative.”)Read: The Polymarket bets on Maduro are a warningUnintentionally or not, this is what happens when media outlets normalize treating every piece of news and entertainment as something to wager on. As Tarek Mansour, Kalshi’s CEO, has said, his long-term goal is to “financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.” (Kalshi means “everything” in Arabic.) What could go wrong? As one viral post on X recently put it, “Got a buddy who is praying for world war 3 so he can win $390 on Polymarket.” It’s a joke. I think.About the AuthorSaahil DesaiFollowSaahil Desai is a senior editor at The Atlantic.Explore More TopicsDemocratic Party, Golden Globe Awards, Greenland, J. D. 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The article “America Is Slow-Walking Into a Polymarket Disaster” by Saahil Desai explores the growing integration of prediction markets into mainstream media and public discourse, raising concerns about their potential to distort reality, manipulate perceptions, and erode trust in information. Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket—platforms where users bet on the likelihood of events ranging from political outcomes to celebrity awards—are increasingly being adopted by major media outlets, including CNN and Dow Jones, as sources of data. These markets are presented as tools to forecast real-world events by aggregating the collective wisdom of participants, who allegedly “put their money where their mouth is.” However, Desai argues that this trend risks transforming news into a form of entertainment tied to gambling, with significant implications for public understanding and decision-making.

The article highlights how prediction markets have moved beyond niche communities to influence mainstream media coverage. For instance, CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten has regularly cited Kalshi’s odds during broadcasts, citing bets on events such as Donald Trump annexing Greenland or the likelihood of Gavin Newsom winning a presidential election. Similarly, Dow Jones has partnered with Polymarket to integrate its data into The Wall Street Journal and other publications. Media outlets justify these collaborations by framing prediction markets as additional sources of context, alongside polls and search trends. However, Desai questions the validity of this approach, noting that the accuracy of these markets is questionable. A study cited in the article found that Polymarket’s forecasts during the 2024 U.S. election were no better than random chance, while its success in predicting Golden Globe winners—26 out of 28—was attributed more to the predictability of awards shows than any inherent analytical power.

A central concern raised by Desai is the manipulability of prediction markets, which can be exploited to influence both public perception and real-world outcomes. Historical examples illustrate this risk: in 2012, a trader on the defunct platform Intrade placed large bets on Mitt Romney’s victory in the presidential election, artificially inflating his odds and potentially swaying media coverage. While the trader lost millions, researchers suggested that the bets might have been intended to boost campaign morale and fundraising rather than generate profit. Such manipulation is particularly dangerous in high-stakes scenarios, such as elections or geopolitical events, where betting odds could mislead the public or even alter the behavior of key actors. Desai cites a hypothetical scenario involving the 2028 presidential race, where a sudden surge in J.D. Vance’s odds on Kalshi might trigger media coverage that amplifies the perception of his viability, regardless of actual polling data. This dynamic could create a feedback loop where market movements disproportionately shape public discourse and policy debates.

The article also underscores the ethical dilemmas of financializing speculative bets on sensitive topics. Kalshi’s CEO, Tarek Mansour, has openly stated the company’s goal of “financializing everything,” turning any difference in opinion into a tradable asset. This philosophy raises troubling questions about the commodification of human experiences, from political events to personal tragedies. Desai points to a viral social media post suggesting that someone might bet on World War III for profit, highlighting the absurdity of treating catastrophic events as opportunities for gain. Even more troubling are instances where users have speculated on highly sensitive outcomes, such as the length of a White House press briefing. After Karoline Leavitt, then-White House Press Secretary, ended a 64-minute briefing abruptly, traders reacted with outrage, having bet that the session would last past 65 minutes. Some speculated that Leavitt had intentionally ended the briefing to profit from the odds, though the White House denied these claims. Such scenarios reveal how prediction markets can foster suspicion and distortion in public life, where even routine events are scrutinized through a lens of speculation.

Desai further critiques the normalization of prediction markets as a form of “suckerification,” where news and entertainment are conflated with gambling. The article draws parallels to the sports betting industry, where metrics like “parlays” and “covering the spread” have become entrenched in commentary. However, the stakes of political and geopolitical betting are far higher than those of sports, with potentially devastating consequences. For example, a wealthy candidate could exploit prediction markets to artificially inflate their odds of winning, influencing media narratives and donor behavior without relying on traditional fundraising methods. The article also notes the involvement of high-profile figures, such as Donald Trump Jr., who serves as an adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket. This entanglement of politics, finance, and media raises concerns about conflicts of interest and the potential for market manipulation.

Despite these risks, some advocates argue that prediction markets offer a more reliable alternative to traditional punditry and clickbait. Desai acknowledges this appeal but warns that the markets’ credibility is undermined by their lack of transparency and susceptibility to external influence. The article references a recent case where a Polymarket user reportedly placed bets on the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, which may have coincided with actual events. While this could be attributed to luck, it also raises questions about whether insiders might exploit the platform for personal gain. The absence of regulatory oversight exacerbates these concerns, as prediction markets operate in a legal gray area, often avoiding the classification of gambling by framing themselves as information platforms.

Ultimately, Desai concludes that the integration of prediction markets into mainstream media represents a dangerous shift in how society engages with information. By treating news as a form of entertainment to be wagered on, these platforms risk eroding the public’s ability to discern fact from speculation. The article warns that as prediction markets become more entrenched, their influence could extend beyond the political realm to shape cultural and social norms. For instance, the inclusion of Polymarket’s forecasts in events like the Golden Globes suggests a broader trend of commercializing even the most trivial aspects of public life. Desai’s critique is not merely about the inaccuracy of these markets but about their capacity to distort reality, manipulate public sentiment, and prioritize profit over integrity.

The article’s significance lies in its timely examination of a phenomenon that is reshaping the media landscape. As prediction markets gain legitimacy, their impact on public discourse and decision-making will only grow, making it imperative to address the ethical and practical challenges they pose. Desai’s call for skepticism toward these platforms is a reminder that the line between information and entertainment is increasingly blurred, with profound implications for democracy, trust, and the future of journalism.