Will You Bet on the News

This seems like a slippery slope that will could help change journalism into more like a casino.

The relationship between journalism and the public is entering a transformative new phase, as two of the world’s most recognized news organizations, CNN and CNBC, forge major partnerships with the online predictions market, Kalshi. This move is fundamentally reshaping how news is consumed and presented, inviting audiences to not just observe world events, but to actively speculate on their outcomes for financial gain.

Kalshi, which has garnered attention for its success in securing regulatory approval from the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)—including winning a pivotal lawsuit to allow betting on the 2024 presidential election—offers a vast and sometimes dizzying array of prediction markets. The public can currently place wagers on everything from the winner of the 2028 presidential election and next month’s unemployment rate to the likelihood of a specific word being spoken during a football broadcast. The platform's trading volume is poised for meteoric growth, with expectations to surge from $300 million in 2024 to over $50 billion in 2025.

The deals signal a significant shift toward integrating real-time market data into editorial coverage. CNN's partnership, effective immediately, involves the "integration of Kalshi data across CNN programming" and the launch of a "new Kalshi-powered real-time news ticker" during relevant segments. Starting in 2026, CNBC will incorporate "real-time prediction data into its editorial coverage across its TV, digital, and subscription channels," and Kalshi will host a custom CNBC page featuring markets curated by the network. While the financial specifics of these arrangements remain confidential, the cultural and journalistic implications are clear.

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour asserted in a December 2 press release that the platform is "replacing debate, subjectivity, and talk with markets, accuracy, and truth," offering a new way to engage with information. By integrating prediction markets, CNN and CNBC are lending significant endorsement to this model, which expands the "horserace" style of political reporting—emphasizing who is up or down—to nearly every imaginable topic. This gamification is coupled directly with the promotion of a company that facilitates wagering on these reported events.

However, treating Kalshi's markets as a pure reflection of "truth" is based on the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which suggests that a liquid market incorporates all available information and thus provides the most accurate forecast. Critics argue that this theory faces serious challenges in the context of prediction markets, particularly due to the stark difference in scale. Even with the anticipated surge in volume, the projected $50 billion in annual volume (roughly $135 million per day) is minuscule compared to the approximately $610 billion in daily trading volume for U.S. equities, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Furthermore, a recent study indicated that over 75% of Kalshi’s trades are related to sports, meaning the current events markets are even smaller.

This exponentially lower volume leaves these markets more susceptible to manipulation. The concern is that wealthy individuals could exploit the market’s newfound prominence in the news cycle. For example, by placing a relatively small bet—which could substantially move a political prediction market—a benefactor might engineer a positive market change for a struggling candidate. This manufactured movement, now reported as "news" by CNN and CNBC, could then serve as evidence to counter or crowd out coverage of a genuine scandal. Similarly, an individual could profit by seeding a false rumor on social media, placing a bet on an opponent, and then selling their position after the subsequent news coverage of the market movement fuels the rumor and drives the opponent's price up further. Ultimately, in an era of extreme wealth disparity, the concern is that market movements, particularly in these relatively small venues, may not reflect the "truth" but rather what affluent participants wish the public to believe, muddying the waters of independent journalism.