New York Times and The Athletic workers demand company scrap Kalshi deal

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• Hacker News
• A great irony here is that Kalshi and media generally are competitors. When I make important decisions (e.g. understanding politics, where to travel and setup companies), I always value betting markets over hearsay (aka media). The former has real money at stake, whereas the latter often has no skin in the game (as well as a other issues; like herd mentality, sensationalism, incentive to tell people what they want to hear rather than what's true).
  by nomilk
• Prediction markets as a news source are politically unbiased and nonpartisan , and this is what the establishment people here don't like.
  by cft
• I hate prediction markets but simultaneously find this a little rich.

  I think most people have experienced what Michael Chrichton called Gel Mann Amnesia - the idea that newspapers feel accurate except about topics you know about.

  Whenever I read about topics I know about: such as my employer, a political topic I am particular familiar with, etc - the reporting is usually off in what MC called a "wet streets cause rain" kind of way.

  I haven't seen any accountability for this kind of reporting. If a newspaper wrote that someone was born in 1980 but it was actually 1985 they may correct that but the broader theme of articles being inherently misleading to reality is rampant and I suspect significantly worse than when MC conceptualized this problem.

  That's to say I am not sure there's a practical standard to which a random times writer is held that kalshi isn't to. If anything I think kalshi is more clearly presented as "a bet" vs "the truth" so I don't understand the meat of the grievance.

  by xyzelement
• Kalshi is illegal gambling and gambling is not news. You can find illegal gambling in all five boroughs of New York in person.
  by josefritzishere
• CNN also has a Kalshi deal.

  https://news.kalshi.com/p/kalshi-cnn-prediction-market-partn...

  by criddell
• This future in illustration...

  https://bsky.app/profile/beanytuesday.bsky.social/post/3mllq...

  by _spduchamp
• Sports gambling is a cancer, as are prediction markets. None of it should've been legalized and all of it should be banned.
  by cdrnsf
• 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.
  by gadders
• True absolute cancer on society
  by fHr
• It should have stopped at Vegas. No reservations exception. Vegas only. No online. No OTB. Vegas only.
  by mc32
• 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.
  by add-sub-mul-div
• 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)
  by altmanaltman
• 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....
  by burkaman
• 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.
  by mag7269
• Ken Paxton went after gambling in Texas but stays hands off on Kalshi | https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/03/ken-paxton-kalshi-t...

  "Paxton didn’t sign on to attempts to regulate Kalshi after the prediction market platform and its CEO donated to him and his PAC."

  by 1vuio0pswjnm7
• 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.

  by astura
• We've literally been through this before:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sox_Scandal

  It's always corrosive to society in a way other vices really aren't. Money is a massive influence and incentive, and in gambling you can artificially increase the possible incentive size with long shot bets.

  The best part of how gambling makes everything shit is that gambling addicts will ruin the sanctity of everything that claims authenticity for just a few actual dollars of "profit", after you ignore all the money they've lost by betting, which addicts tend to do.

  Assholes who insist betting on things are the best and totally great for the world somehow will harm a sports event that ten thousand people have paid a hundred dollars to enjoy just to earn a hundred bucks themselves.

  by mrguyorama
• There was also a story about a reporter who wrote a story about a missile strike and people who had bet against a missile strike applied a lot of pressure, including death threats, on the reporter to change his story.

  https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/03/17/israel-...

  by criddell
• 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.

  by tantalor
• And I hope nobody is claiming that mainstream journalism has any accountability
  by consensus1
• No accountability in their doublespeak means no partisan interest, no lobby prescribing how to spin the news. This is what they (and the downvoters here) don't like.
  by cft
• 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
  by freejazz
• > nobody is claiming prediction markets are a type of journalism.

  James Surowiecki wrote an entire book essentially saying otherwise.

  by Alex3917
• 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.
  by mikeryan
• Corruption
  by lokar
• > competent DOJ

  Answered your own question.

  by freejazz
• Insider trading is like the whole point of prediction markets. Users pay the insiders for better information
  by HDThoreaun
• 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.
  by wbl
• There's nobody left at the DoJ in a high enough position to do anything like this. I'm not a gambler myself, but if I were, I certainly wouldn't used something that seems made for insider traders and suckers.
  by JohnTHaller
• > a competent DOJ

  The question answers itself.

  by Octoth0rpe