The exploding popularity of prediction markets since 2024 has not been kept a secret. These platforms — Kalshi and Polymarket are the most popular — have rocketed into public focus, becoming increasingly intertwined with national consumption of news, sports, politics, media and everything in between, and they show no signs of slowing down. Given how these markets attempt to define themselves, this indefinite expansion presents the danger of potentially corrupting our consumption of current events.
It is critical to make the distinction that when a Kalshi market says that “Yes” is trading at 58¢, this does not mean that the event has a 58% chance of happening — it means that those trading “Yes” and “No” on the market have reached some balance at 58%. This is the underlying concept behind prediction markets: that traders will find the probability of a given outcome by trading until they reach a consensus. Think that the odds are wrong? Buy some shares and find out for yourself.
However, this logic is flawed — especially in how it is interpreted by the public. The equilibriums that the markets reach simply are not actual probabilities — they may represent traders’ estimation of an event’s probability, but not actually how likely that event is to happen. Yet, these odds are marketed as the latter, rather than the former, and so for consumers, the line between the two blurs.
Take CNN, which partnered with Kalshi in December 2025. When they present the percentages that the prediction market provides, they are described plainly as the odds that the event will happen. Viewers give big figures like these a lot of weight, so to present them as concrete and objective only legitimizes both the events and prediction markets. Wisdom of the crowd does not always apply, either — bettors can fundamentally misread an event and create poor odds. They still get interpreted as fact.
Especially considering these markets’ roots in attempting to predict elections and political events, this can have widespread consequences. Prediction markets react to incoming news in real time, so when Donald Trump indicates that he is going to invade Venezuela, for instance, Polymarket’s market on whether Trump will invade Venezuela trends heavily towards “Yes.” The media then reports on this, and it’s interpreted by the public as the invasion being a fact. Politics moves slowly — and it is supposed to in situations like this — but prediction markets legitimize these outcomes and make them seem like done deals before any due diligence can even be considered.
What is most likely to cause damage to prediction markets, though, is that they are rife with sports betting. While prediction markets are not (yet) regulated, sports betting platforms are, and so it is crucial for Polymarket and Kalshi to legally distinguish themselves as something separate. When 90% of Kalshi’s trading volume is on sports, though, and the platform is partnering with sports organizations and players (such as Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo), arguing that the platform does not actually contain sports betting becomes a hard sell. This prediction market “loophole,” then, allows them to sidestep strict regulations on sports betting that apply to declared platforms, such as FanDuel.
While online gambling continues to grip the nation in its many forms, prediction markets present a unique threat. Between their unregulated facilitation of sports betting and hijacking of how we consume current events, as well as further issues like how some markets can only be classified as gambling (how can you predict the Super Bowl coin flip?), enough is enough. It is time for legislators to respond to the times and regulate prediction markets.