16 comments

  • cdrnsf 36 minutes ago
    Sports gambling is a cancer, as are prediction markets. None of it should've been legalized and all of it should be banned.
    • vovavili 6 minutes ago
      Prediction markets are a wonderful idea that at the moment is strongly lacking in prestige signals, bare minimum of regulation and liquidity.
      • pyrale 1 minute ago
        > Prediction markets are a wonderful idea

        Yeah, it's just like being able to take an insurance policy on other people's lives. It's a wonderful idea for all of 15 minutes until people start getting murdered.

        > bare minimum of regulation

        No amount of regulation will solve the issue when what you can take insurance on is not regulated.

      • par 0 minutes ago
        "a wonderful idea" -- some hyperbole there.
    • add-sub-mul-div 32 minutes ago
      At a minimum, if it was going to be legal why could they not have restricted the advertising like we do with tobacco ads? At this point the sports broadcasts themselves are advertisements.
    • dominotw 15 minutes ago
      have you seen stock market these days?
      • Avicebron 7 minutes ago
        Is the stock market able to distinguish cancerous vs non-cancerous growth?
        • amelius 2 minutes ago
          Well, long term trading is what we should stimulate because it corresponds to investments based on insights in the underlying companies.

          Short term trading, however ...

          Maybe we should just put limits on how short one can own a stock (?)

      • cdrnsf 7 minutes ago
        Yes. It feels more and more like a casino as time goes by.
    • altmanaltman 31 minutes ago
      I would say prediction markets are more dangerous since they don't claim its gambling while sports gambling is much more explicit (not that the industry is a saint by any means)
      • Zigurd 17 minutes ago
        It's also an obvious and cynical regulatory dodge. Prediction markets make the bulk of their profit from sports betting.
    • palmotea 32 minutes ago
      [flagged]
      • altmanaltman 30 minutes ago
        How is it unjust? A company is not owed any profits, if it gets rekt by an union then it gets rekt. It cannot say "oh its not fair you guys are fighting me, only I can fight you in a just fight!" Ridiculous logic.
        • Zigurd 14 minutes ago
          palmotea really wants to torque hN's literal mindednes, don't they? This is one place where the joke gets funnier as it gets explained.
        • porkpieshoe 19 minutes ago
          [dead]
        • jdndnfnhm 20 minutes ago
          you need things explained to you step by step yeah
        • fsckboy 25 minutes ago
          whoosh

          GP is in favor of unions and thinks they perform beneficial public services. They don't.

          • palmotea 17 minutes ago
            > GP is in favor of unions and thinks they perform beneficial public services. They don't.

            They don't provide beneficial public services. The beneficial public service is squeezing the most you can out of every employee, which unions unjustly resist. Every employee should be isolated to the greatest extent possible, it's what's best for the market.

          • nozzlegear 19 minutes ago
            "Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the Devil; for which reason I have, long since, as good as renounced it."

            – Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, describing how he stopped using sarcasm in his essays because it provokes hostility. He goes on describe the ironic person as a "pest to society."

      • baggy_trough 26 minutes ago
        Both unions (as legally constructed in the US) and sports gambling are cancers.
    • gadders 15 minutes ago
      You do realise that countries other than the USA exist, right? The UK has had various forms of sports gambling legal for nearly 100 years and society hasn't crumbled and neither did sport.
      • strictnein 2 minutes ago
        You've been able to gamble on your mobile device for 100 years in the UK?

        Modern gambling isn't you talking to a bookie and putting down $100 on your favorite team. That should still be legal. Phone apps which learn your behavior, your favorite teams, the offers you are likely to accept, the time of day that you're most likely to make a bet, etc etc and use that to barrage you with notifications, "free" plays, high paying parlays with horrible odds, should not be.

        Society bears the downsides of gambling and gambling addiction, while the casinos gather all of the upside.

        Finally... https://www.thalamos.co.uk/resources/gambling-addiction-rela...

        > NHS gambling clinics have experienced a rise of 130% in referrals in a year, leading to a large increase in the number of support locations.

        Seems like the UK is also experiencing a large increase in problems from modern gambling systems.

      • Gattopardo 10 minutes ago
        America is not the UK and its citizens are not capable of regulating themselves in the face of this sort of exploitation.
        • strictnein 1 minute ago
          > NHS gambling clinics have experienced a rise of 130% in referrals in a year, leading to a large increase in the number of support locations.

          Sounds like the enlightened citizens of the UK aren't either?

        • consensus1 1 minute ago
          I think that's a hilarious statement given how they drink in the UK
      • gdulli 12 minutes ago
        Imagine two siblings, one who can handle the freedom of choosing their own bedtime and one who cannot.
        • gadders 0 minutes ago
          I don't see any country limitation in the original comment.
  • tantalor 15 minutes ago
    The linked article is pretty interesting:

    > found a pattern of [Polymarket] sharing false and misleading information

    https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/technology/polymarket-soc...

    They don't have much to say about Kalshi other than "unlike real mainstream journalism, there’s no accountability". Which isn't saying much, because nobody is claiming prediction markets are a type of journalism.

    • consensus1 0 minutes ago
      And I hope nobody is claiming that mainstream journalism has any accountability
    • freejazz 6 minutes ago
      This website has been full of people that say it's better than journalism, so I don't think you're really capturing the entirety of the dynamic
  • cm2012 47 minutes ago
    Sports gambling is a cancer for every sports institution and this protest is a step in the right direction.
  • mikeryan 1 hour ago
    I really don’t understand how these markets survive a competent DOJ considering the rate they’re having to ban people for “insider trading”. Fully appreciate the Unions position here.
    • gavinsyancey 1 hour ago
      Most competent people at the DOJ have either been fired or left. And the current administration seems to love insider trading, so long as they can be the insiders doing the trading.
    • santadays 1 hour ago
    • Octoth0rpe 55 minutes ago
      > a competent DOJ

      The question answers itself.

    • wbl 1 hour ago
      Insider trading is legal in commodities markets. If I am engaged in a hedging transaction I am doing so because I know about risks that I want to offload, and the buyer does also. You don't come to commodities markets without information.
      • gavinsyancey 47 minutes ago
        Hedging is not insider trading. Insider trading is trading based on material non-public information in breach of a duty or obtained through fraud. In that sense, it's more of a principal-agent problem.

        Also -- hedging is generally not done based on material non-public information, but rather to guard against known risks. Joe the farmer sells a bunch of wheat futures when he plants his wheat, not because he thinks the price will go down, but rather because if it does he goes bankrupt and he'd prefer to accept a known rate-of-return now.

      • CPLX 52 minutes ago
        Just for context that’s not quite accurate. There certainly is a distinction in the rule versus securities markets, which I know is what you mean.

        But it’s more accurate to say participants can trade on lawfully obtained material nonpublic information absent some independent duty not to use it, which is much narrower than saying insider trading is generally legal.

      • cucumber3732842 1 hour ago
        Exactly. Pit mine sees who's buying what and is worried copper will go down. Datacenter people see who's inking deals and are worried it's gonna go up. They both need to get big fancy loans from their bankers to execute their upcoming projects. The bankers won't like to see unbounded risk on their balance sheets. A futures contract exists to solve this problem.

        Not that this excuses some of the absurd stuff that goes on on the online betting platforms...

    • freejazz 5 minutes ago
      > competent DOJ

      Answered your own question.

    • lokar 1 hour ago
      Corruption
    • luizfzs 35 minutes ago
      Lobbying
  • imagetic 1 minute ago
    Agreed. They should not be tied or linked or it.
  • burkaman 1 hour ago
    This is about stopping a potential deal (https://frontofficesports.com/article/the-athletic-serious-t...), nothing finalized yet. They have allegedly abandoned the idea and claim that isn't because of the union demands: https://frontofficesports.com/article/new-york-times-union-k....
  • criddell 14 minutes ago
  • mag7269 37 minutes ago
    Got really confused as why my granola bar company was signing a deal with the NYT and The Athletic, and why this was deemed so controversial, then I used Google and learned the difference between Kashi and Kalshi.
  • caycep 1 minute ago
    Another reason to question the judgement of Meredith Kopit Levien / the younger Sulzberger...
  • astura 20 minutes ago
    Someone tampered with the weather equipment at Charles de Gaulle airport for a Polymarket bet. This sort of thing is going to become so much more common going forward.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/hairdryer-or-l...

    On another note, I had no idea the athletic was owned by NY Times.

  • The_Blade 1 hour ago
    what happened with Bill Simmons bragging about using his daughter's boyfriend to place proxy bets for him on FanDuel (who Bill is partnered with) is endlessly entertaining

    Trump Jr. just pumped 300 million into Polymarket and also has a stake in Kalshi so, i'm not sure who thinks the DOJ will really do anything. this is fentanyl on the phone but there will have to be a few examples like some low-levels House members or state senators alongside sports casualites

  • basisword 37 minutes ago
    I find it really interesting that online sports betting, which has been a thing in my country for 15+ years and largely a non-issue, is suddenly a total shitshow once it gets legalised in the US. I feel like the US always takes things too far. I watch quite a few US sports and former athletes giving betting suggestions during broadcasts is absolutely insane. How can you go from being so restrictive to having absolutely no limits overnight? To make matters worse I get the feeling the TV companies here are taking pointers from their US colleagues and starting to force us down the same path.
  • monideas 1 hour ago
    [flagged]
    • pavel_lishin 1 hour ago
      Why would they support a deal with a company doing harm to people?
      • _bent 1 hour ago
        it was a joke stemming from the understanding monideas has that the NYT is not an agent of the status quo but actually somehow misandrist turbowoke.
        • sire-vc 1 hour ago
          That is what was meant and based on some of what they have published it is barely a joke.
        • monideas 1 hour ago
          I wouldn’t use the term misandry because they also are interested in damaging women.

          “Turbowoke”, sure but we’re really just talking about mainstream American elite culture which is progressive. And young men are a particular target because they are generally the main threat to the status quo.

          Basically the NY Times is precisely an agent of the status quo.

      • santadays 1 hour ago
        I read it as the liberal elite hate young men... so damaging them is a good thing.
    • fyredge 1 hour ago
      Google was not helpful to me, but what exactly is the deal being discussed? Is NYT going to allow readers to place kalshi bets on their website / app? That would be even more damaging to young men IMO.
      • input_sh 1 hour ago
        I'm guessing it'll be something like the CNN deal where basically every story about elections would include "according to predictions on Kalshi..."
      • pibaker 1 hour ago
        I'm placing a bet on "at least one NYT editor caught manipulating news stories so he can win Kalshi bets within one year" if a deal like this goes through.
        • bee_rider 30 minutes ago
          How will that bet be resolved concretely, will you base it on a NYT headline?

          In some grim way it will be interesting to see the how this evolves. I mean, in a way betting markets are parasitic on news agencies that have a reputation for objective reporting, in the sense that they need something that can be treated as objective to evaluate their bets. How will it shake out if reporting institutions become “part of the game.” If “editor at NYT” or “knows and editor at NYT” become an advantages that can be leveraged (either for advanced outcomes or to manipulate outcomes themselves).

          Maybe the betting groups will eventually need to built institutions that are known for objective/prudent reporting that can be accessed equally, haha.

    • axpy906 1 hour ago
      Predatory is probably the correct word. You’ve got better odds at a casino which says a lot.
      • Petersipoi 33 minutes ago
        How do you have better odds at a casino? Is the cut Kalshi takes so big that it makes the odds bad for both sides?
    • retr0rocket 1 hour ago
      [dead]
  • tlogan 41 minutes ago
    The only thing I know is that journalism stopped being independent and unbiased a long, long time ago.
    • nozzlegear 28 minutes ago
      Interesting, but what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
    • webdoodle 7 minutes ago
      Citizen's United was the nail in the coffin for honest journalism, because it sold out to those with the largest wallets. If you truly want truth in journalism support independent journalists financially, and with your attention. Ignore corporate media.
    • mindslight 20 minutes ago
      It seems like you should probably spend some effort on trying to learn at least a few more things?
  • woah 23 minutes ago
    Unfortunately, this shows how much facts and reality have been turned into nothing more than a loyalty test by both sides of our political debate.

    > A partnership between The Times (for The Athletic) and Kalshi would also provide validation that their prediction market data should be taken seriously as an indicator of the future. Facts prove otherwise.

    They could have objected to the partnership on any number of valid grounds, like the fact that predicting the outcome of sporting events provides no valid benefit and can only ever be gambling, or that the integration is probably going to be pretty lame and provide no benefit to the reader.

    Instead, they felt compelled to make a trivially false claim, the claim that prediction markets do not accurately predict the future. It's trivial to prove that this claim is false, because if it were true, it would be very easy for anyone to make a huge amount of money on prediction markets.

    It's even more telling why they made this claim, to avoid "providing validation". Not because of any harms caused by sports gambling addiction, but because it could provide a tiny piece of political ammunition to a product that has been slotted into the opposing political tribe. Reading this statement, one gets the impression that they would be completely OK with sports gambling on The Athletic, as long as it was provided by a more traditional casino-style bookie operation.

    I'm guessing that anyone in the room when this statement was written who even brought up the question of the facts could be safely sidelined and ostracized by the union as being insufficiently loyal to their political position.

    • dbspin 14 minutes ago
      > the claim that prediction markets do not accurately predict the future. It's trivial to prove that this claim is false, because if it were true, it would be very easy for anyone to make a huge amount of money on prediction markets

      I'm not intimately familiar with prediction markets (I avoid gambling), but can you explain how this is the case? If the market unpredictably incorrect, then shouldn't it be difficult / impossible to predict precisely which bets will be wrong in a way that would allow you to profit from them?

      Ultimately isn't it the case that all they're doing (at least from a prediction point of view) is aggregating (better or worse informed) guesses? Excepting outright corruption / insider trading of course. This might tell you a great deal about what the set of users of a given prediction market expect as an outcome for a given prediction, but it doesn't tell you anything about the future itself. Any more than the stock market (fails to) tell us to pull out money out the day before a crash.

    • jt2190 15 minutes ago
      > Instead, they felt compelled to make a trivially false claim, the claim that prediction markets do not accurately predict the future. It's trivial to prove that this claim is false, because if it were true, it would be very easy for anyone to make a huge amount of money on prediction markets.

      Isn’t that what’s actually happening though? Traders are making real money from bad predictions?

      “These are the Sharps actually making money on prediction markets” Odd Lots podcast (Bloomberg) 2026 https://youtu.be/MFAnQpdgkZE

    • Zigurd 8 minutes ago
      In practical terms commercial prediction markets are unregulated gambling. That's where the money comes from. Stapling a vitamin C packet to your cigarette box doesn't diminish that you're selling cigarettes.
      • woah 5 minutes ago
        Again, this union doesn't seem to take a position on gambling at all in this statement
    • beepbopboopp 13 minutes ago
      Politics is the act of organizing people.

      Your whole comment misses the point of the sport. It is not effective to look for the most accurate or rhetorically tested point, the goal is to rally as large a group around a point that dosent make them look like hypocrites, or materially clashes with how they present their identity in other parts of their lives.

      This point being mealy mouthed is by design.