How Kalshi Infects the News • Hacker News Board

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#71

Post by mghackerlady » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #67

Over the last 2+ decades gambling has increased massively. By "gambling" I include sports betting, prediction markets, online casinos and crypto (including NFTs). Yes, I'm including crypto under gambling. When ordinary people buy crypto it's mostly because they saw the stratospheric rise of Bitcoin, don't really understand why and don't want to miss out on the next Bitcoin.. Straight up. That's gambling. But why? Eas…

There's 3 kinds of crypto buyers: The investor, the criminal, and your weird libertarian uncle

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#72

Post by topgrain2 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

throwaway27448 wrote: post #49

dieselgate wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious what the golden goose refers to here?

There's a lot of money in gambling. Nobody seems to want do anything that might depress the economy, even if it means the death of democracy.

See also: the healthcare system, and the military.

We pump spectacular amounts of money (~10% of GDP in the former case based on diffing high-end-of-normal healthcare costs for peer states with ours, and who knows how much in the latter but probably around the same) into white collar and blue collar (respectively) jobs programs and wage-supplementation that buy us basically nothing. A ton worse than a proper jobs program building public infrastructure (the CCC or something) or dumping that money into doctor training or whatever. Extremely poor ROI, but we can't touch them or GDP craters (nominally only—these aren't producing much in the first place, the P part of GDP, of course, which is probably part of why the US doesn't feel as rich as it looks on paper)

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#73

Post by yousif_123123 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

frollogaston wrote: post #45

Reminds me of news articles that are just Twitter screenshots, except now there's money directly involved. Btw every ad around the stadium in World Cup is for Kalshi now. Really makes me question the fairness of the games.

They blocked gambling ads from in stadium ads for the world cup, but Kalshi was still able to get one in because it's "predictions" and not gambling.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#74

Post by ToucanLoucan » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #31

baggachipz wrote: post #3

The unprecedented era of gambling on literally everything everywhere is an absolute cancer on society, made completely legal by absolute greed and degeneracy at the highest levels of government. I don't know how we put this genie back in the bottle (amongst many detrimental genies).

What I find almost as depressing is evidently the concerted push to normalize this practice. We were all shocked by Polymarket, but meanwhile others just saw it as yet another emerging market - and now CNN is including it in news segments as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

We are incredibly market-brained at this point. A certain kind of person loves markets because they provide decisions on complex questions at scale. And like, that's not NEVER true, but it also takes for granted a lot of rational thinking among people who act completely irrationally with incredible regularity.

Perhaps our greatest cultural fiction right now is the "rationality" of markets, and people are looking for insight more than ever on our insane world. So that makes perfect sense to me, really.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#75

Post by mflaherty22 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

Felt this video I saw this morning was relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV3rpuf8iAk

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#76

Post by mullingitover » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

rescripting wrote: post #29

hebleb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may take awhile, but it ends by voting in political candidates that actually care about combatting greed and corruption again

There is a market for the gamblification of everything because there is no other widely accessible path for young people to build a future. A college degree is no longer a guaranteed path to a stable, well paying job. Building wealth through real estate is no longer viable. With no clear options the only visible path to building a modicum of wealth is timing the next big crypto rugpull, hitting a 5 leg parlay, rippin…

> There is a market for the gamblification of everything because there is no other widely accessible path for young people to build a future.

Gambling is the closest we've come to figuring out how to directly tax hope.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#77

Post by DonsDiscountGas » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #63

Did anyone else think it was strange how fast legitimate news orgs (cnn for example) integrated prediction markets into their businesses?

Not really. It's easy "content"for them and adds a veneer of quantitative rigor to what would otherwise be pure vibes.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#78

Post by testbjjl » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

baggachipz wrote: post #3

The unprecedented era of gambling on literally everything everywhere is an absolute cancer on society, made completely legal by absolute greed and degeneracy at the highest levels of government. I don't know how we put this genie back in the bottle (amongst many detrimental genies).

Feels like we’re the ones being put in a bottle as rational thinking, integrity, consideration of the greater good on all things big and small are interpreted as being weak and/or arresting people’s freedoms. When you forget hard learned lessons, they have a way of reminding you eventually.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#79

Post by reaperducer » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:32 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #40

xg15 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find almost as depressing is evidently the concerted push to normalize this practice. We were all shocked by Polymarket, but meanwhile others just saw it as yet another emerging market - and now CNN is including it in news segments as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

[flagged]

People still watch CNN?

910,000 in prime time hours in April, which is 909,999 more than you.

https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/here-are-the-cable-news-rati...

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#80

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 4:32 PM UTC

testbjjl wrote: post #78

baggachipz wrote: post #3

The unprecedented era of gambling on literally everything everywhere is an absolute cancer on society, made completely legal by absolute greed and degeneracy at the highest levels of government. I don't know how we put this genie back in the bottle (amongst many detrimental genies).

Feels like we’re the ones being put in a bottle as rational thinking, integrity, consideration of the greater good on all things big and small are interpreted as being weak and/or arresting people’s freedoms. When you forget hard learned lessons, they have a way of reminding you eventually.

Something bad will happen, and the idiots will just follow whatever the next thing is.