As prediction markets rise in popularity and notoriety, several news outlets have recently engaged in partnerships with the most prominent of these companies, raising questions about how and why media organizations would want to become entangled with an industry essentially predicated on gambling. Depending on who you ask, these relationships could be ultimately benign—or they could become yet another domino in the cascading decline in the public trust of the media.
Prediction markets allow participants to bet on the specific outcomes of real-world events. The two largest players in this industry are Kalshi and Polymarket. In recent months, Kalshi has struck deals with such outlets as CNBC, CNN, and Fox News, among others, while Polymarket has established partnerships with Dow Jones and Substack.
There are a few reasons news organizations might want to engage in these partnerships, including the possibility of financial benefits. In theory, these relationships are akin to those between news organizations and traditional advertisers. That means the relationship would be subject to the traditional barriers that separate the business side of a media outlet from its editorial side. In this way, the inclusion of prediction market data in news coverage does not mean that the outlet would diminish its coverage of that industry or treat it uncritically, in the same way that a newsletter sponsored by Aetna wouldn’t necessarily go easy on pharmaceutical companies.
“For as long as there’s been advertising in the news, we understand that there’s this firewall between editorial and advertising. And if that breaks down, then there’s a lack of trust in the journalism that’s being done,” said Dustin Gouker, the author of a newsletter on prediction markets. But what’s different about the partnerships between Kalshi and Polymarket and news outlets, continued Gouker, is that this data may be directly inserted into the news, without a clear indication to readers that the information is sponsored.
Meanwhile, the benefit for prediction markets is pretty clear: It raises their profile among an audience who might not otherwise be aware of them. According to one recent poll commissioned by the investment firm Paradigm, 51 percent of voters said they have not heard, seen, or read something about prediction markets in the past year. Given that prediction market use is still low among the larger population, the promotion of these companies on news sites can help acculturate Americans to the idea that these are useful tools with institutional support.
These partnerships could also potentially help prediction markets in future legal arguments, if they need to make the case that there is added societal benefit to their product. Several states have filed lawsuits against prediction markets, alleging that they violate state gaming laws. The Trump administration has pushed back, suing some states for trying to regulate the industry. As prediction markets engage in these legal proceedings, the legitimacy offered by a partnership with news outlets might bolster their case.
“The case that the prediction markets can make is, ‘Oh, look at the value we provide to society. Go on CNBC, go on CNN, go on Fox. Look at our integrated platforms. We are augmenting the news. We are making the news better. We are giving viewers a more accurate depiction of what the public thinks is going to happen in events,’” hypothesized Jonathan Cohen, who leads gambling policy at the American Institute for Boys and Men, or AIBM.
There’s very little detail available about what most of these partnerships might ultimately entail or how they might evolve over time. Fox News has said it will not rely on Kalshi for its elections coverage. CNBC is disclaiming that it has a small stake in Kalshi for its stories related to prediction markets; according to a recent press release, a “Kalshi ticker will run alongside segments of CNBC’s on-air programming” and the firm “will also launch a CNBC page on its site, featuring CNBC-selected markets.” The details of CNN’s partnership with Kalshi are perhaps the most transparent; CNN will integrate graphics of Kalshi’s data into its reporting, include a “real-time news ticker” for stories involving Kalshi data, and obtain “access to Kalshi’s real-time political, news, and cultural data for developing key storylines and visuals,” according to the December press release announcing the relationship.
Indeed, the “really cool graphics” may be a key aspect of why news outlets are partnering with prediction markets, said Steve Ruddock, a gambling industry consultant and the editor in chief of the Gaming Law Review. He compared it to the charts that polling experts will pull up in their coverage on public opinion during news segments.
“That’s all from internal polling, and aggregating other external polls,” Ruddock said. “Prediction markets are just another layer of that.”
But even if the partnership is limited to integration of graphics or predictions on the weather or sports, there could still be the perception of an unethical entanglement between news outlet and prediction market that could further erode trust in the media. For example, a viewer could become convinced that a reporter bet in favor of a certain outcome on a prediction market and then adjusted their news coverage to ensure that outcome.
“The only reason to watch a news organization is because you can trust it,” said Jonathan Cohen, who has also written a book on sports gambling. “Any sliver of doubt [in] your news organization because it is somehow beholden to gambling interests … those feel like sort of Faustian bargains to me.”
Part of the issue is that prediction markets have hyped themselves as, well, presenters of predictions that will come to pass. Shayne Coplan, the CEO of Polymarket, has said that prediction markets are a “global truth machine.” But if, say, prediction markets give Democrats a 75 percent chance of taking back the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, that doesn’t mean it’s a sure thing—there’s still a 25 percent chance it could remain in Republican hands.
As a whole, the user base of prediction markets accounts for only a very small part of the American population. An NBC News poll released in March found that only 3 percent of Americans are investing in prediction markets. Younger men are also disproportionately more likely to participate in betting markets as opposed to other demographics. A recent poll by AIBM found that in the past six months, 26 percent of young men respondents reported using at least one sports betting, daily fantasy sports, prediction market, or other gambling platform, as compared to 14 percent of the general population.
There are other characteristics that make prediction market usage less representative of the general population, as well. Molly White, a cryptocurrency and technology industry researcher, said that because Polymarket is a cryptocurrency-based market, its event contracts can often “function less as public sentiment about an outcome actually happening, and more as what the crypto community would like to have happen.”
Moreover, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission had blocked Polymarket’s use in the U.S. between 2022 and late 2025. During this time, it actually expanded dramatically on a global level, and the second Trump administration eased restrictions on Polymarket, which counts Donald Trump Jr. among its investors. (Trump Jr. is also a paid adviser to Kalshi.) Polymarket is now legal to use on a federal level, but some states have engaged in lawsuits against prediction markets—including Polymarket and Kalshi—with the goal of preventing these companies from serving their residents. There is very little regulation of prediction markets as a whole.
The AIBM poll also found that young men, as well as the general public, view prediction markets as closer to gambling than investments. As such, news consumers might find the idea of a collaboration between media organizations and prediction markets distasteful.
“I think there’s this general distaste for prediction markets among a substantial portion of the American public, where people don’t really want to see what they view as gambling alongside their sober news coverage,” said White.
Still, some research indicates that prediction markets may be more accurate than polls because only a tiny subset of people, even within that small portion of the larger population, are setting prices. A recent research paper by scholars from the London Business School and Yale University found that the success of prediction markets is less due to the “wisdom of the crowd” but instead largely sourced from the actions of a small minority of informed traders representing fewer than 4 percent of all accounts.
“It’s a snapshot in time. This is what the probability of something happening in real time is. And I think that’s valuable,” said Gouker.
It’s also possible that a major scandal with Kalshi or Polymarket could have no effect at all on trust in the media. “If the prediction markets go away tomorrow, does anything really change for the news organization? Probably not,” said Ruddock. “It wouldn’t be any different than if a polling organization got caught fudging data, or using incorrect metrics. It’s basically, ‘This is a third party that we’re using for information. If there’s a scandal at that [company], hey, that’s not us.’”
But in the long term, news outlets may be bolstering what could eventually be their competition. The websites for Kalshi and Polymarket already present themselves as pseudo-news sites, with verticals on such topics as politics, sports, and economics, as well as “trending” markets. Even though Polymarket has a history of amplifying false information on its social media pages, Coplan has referred to it as “News 2.0.” Legitimizing these markets could, down the line, further erode the relevance of traditional news.
“[Prediction markets] are trying to make themselves an invaluable part of the ecosystem of media and finance,” Gouker said. “Just them being embedded into the media is part of the journey as they try to get to that point of mass adoption.”
