About the Guest:
Judd Legum is the founder and author of Popular Information, an independent newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism. Popular Information won the 2020 Online Journalism Award for Excellence in Newsletters, and its reporting was credited by Bloomberg for bringing a "political reckoning" to corporate America. Previously, Legum founded and served as editor-in-chief of ThinkProgress, a progressive media outlet. In 2008, Legum was the research director for Hillary Clinton's first presidential campaign. He is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Pomona College.
Episode Transcript:
CORY BARKER: Scroll through a prediction market and it looks a lot like a financial news dashboard: outcomes listed, prices moving, a clock counting down. At first, the questions seem familiar: sports outcomes, pop-culture moments, offhand predictions that feel more like entertainment than analysis. Then one market stops you. It asks whether a famine will be declared in Gaza. Same interface. Same mechanics. But suddenly it’s clear what’s being traded: human suffering. With people positioned to profit from mass starvation. This is, unfortunately, a real example from the prediction market platform Kalshi. And it helps explain why prediction markets raise serious ethical questions — especially as they become increasingly intertwined with news coverage. Prediction markets themselves aren’t new. What is new is their growing role in the news media. CNN and CNBC have both entered partnerships with Kalshi to integrate prediction market data into their reporting. CNN’s deal is already in place. CNBC’s begins in 2026. Partnerships like these will put betting odds directly into mainstream news. Supporters argue prediction markets are efficient tools; a way to aggregate information or forecast outcomes more accurately than polls or pundits. But critics warn that when journalism starts borrowing the logic of gambling, something fundamental changes. Events stop being reported for their meaning and consequences and start being framed in terms of odds, momentum, and payouts. The future becomes something to speculate on, not something to understand.
MATT JORDAN: There’s a real concern that when these market shifts are amplified by major news outlets, they could be mistaken for genuine signals about real-world events, shaping not only how the news is reported, but potentially influencing the outcomes themselves.
That raises a serious question: when journalism starts adopting the logic of betting markets, what does that mean for accountability, ethics, and a free press? To help us unpack that, we’re talking with Judd Legum, founder and editor of Popular Information. Judd has been closely examining the growing influence of prediction markets on news coverage, and what this “casino-fication” of information could mean for public trust, democratic decision-making, and the future of a free press. Judd, welcome. Welcome to News Over Noise.
JUDD LEGUM: Thanks for having me.
MATT JORDAN: So, tell us a little bit about what prediction markets are and where they came from.
JUDD LEGUM: I mean, I think obviously the idea of betting on some future event has been around for, for quite some, quite some time. But these are really risen to prominence in recent years as the legalities of them were resolved. There were a number of players. Polymarket probably was the most prominent one that began offering these kinds of markets on all sorts of things politics, sports, what have you. But they were operating, really under the assumption that it was illegal in the United States. They weren't technically available in the United States, although many people got around that restriction through VPNs and other technical means. But then what happened was that Kalshi effectively sued the federal government, saying that what they were doing was legal. This was around the 2024 election, and their ability to have them offer a market on that, and that was eventually, decided in their favor, which effectively legalized, for Kalshi, the market under the auspices of the CFTC. And since then, effectively, the federal government has condoned this practice, the ability to set up a market over almost anything. And, since then, the popularity has exploded.
MATT JORDAN: They were being, as you said, both investigated by the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission. And also, there was some congressional pushback in 2023 about this, but that oversight to stopped. What happened? What stopped the oversight and the idea that being able to bet on anything, anywhere, at any time would be a bad thing?
JUDD LEGUM: Well, I think there's two things. There was this very specific legal dispute about the politics betting and the betting on the 2024 election. So, eventually a federal court ruled in favor of Kalshi that this wasn't illegal. What they're arguing is that this isn't actually gambling. This is a market like any other market that might be available for a stock or some other asset. So, that was resolved. That meant that they could offer these markets on, you know, the presidential election and presumably on for other elections. They're probably less interested in, you know, betting on some random congressional election. But you could do it under that precedent. Then the Trump administration came in. You could sort of fight it on each substantive category. You could have decided, like, okay, well, maybe it's okay with politics, but when you're moving into sports or when you're moving into all of the other, like random things that are now available to bet on, we're going to argue that it's illegal there and we're going to fight you on it. That has not been what they've done. What they've done is said, okay, we are going to allow this. You kind of give us a heads up when you offer a any kind of new market, and we'll let you know if we see any problems with it. And, you know, that's been the route that the Trump administration has taken. That's allowed them Kalshi to form all sorts of partnerships with different prominent organizations and to really raise their profile and raise the awareness of the platform itself, which in turn has raised the usage.
CORY BARKER: We're going to talk about the integration of the call platform into CNN and CNBC in a moment. But I wanted to ask you, as we're on this background point, how do you think we and our audience can best understand the integration of this type of market into news coverage?
JUDD LEGUM: I mean, to me, it comes down to fundamentally what is news and why are people interested in it. And I think our kind of traditional understanding of news, and this has never been the full driving force behind it, but kind of at its most idealized, in its most idealized version, people are of this world. They care about their neighborhood, their country, the international community, because they are a part of it. They want to understand it. And so, news seeks to fill that need. It's going to educate people about the world because they're interested in it. And maybe when they find out about it, they don't like what's going on and they're going to engage in some way. Maybe that's just voting for a particular candidate, maybe that's something more, or maybe they're going to attend a protest. Maybe they're going to start an activist group. Who knows? That's one version. But I think the other version, and this has always been a part of it, is news is entertainment. We're not really going to do anything with this information. It's not really important to me as a person in some way, but I'm watching it the same way. I'm watching, you know, The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. I'm watching it as entertainment. There's interesting things going on, and I'm kind of interested in the characters and what's happening. And I think when you turn everything into a betting opportunity, I think you're elevating that part of news. Not that it, news, was pure before this and then it corrupted news. I think this was always part of news from the very beginning, this was always part of news. And there's a there's a rich tradition of kind of tabloid news and news as entertainment but I think it takes it to another level because it essentially abstracts every news story and it makes it into just another way to potentially make some money. No matter, no matter what's at stake.
MATT JORDAN: Should news be doing prognostication and prediction anyway?
JUDD LEGUM: Well, I've long been a critic of that version of news which has been on the rise even before Kalshi and Polymarket and others sort of rose to prominence. And ultimately, you know, if you just look at where this comes up the most, which is presidential elections. And, if you think about there's a limited amount of time that any platform, any outlet has to cover the election. Now, on the first Tuesday in November, or hopefully at least shortly thereafter, you will know who is president and who lost. But so much of that news hole, you know, is the industry term is filled up with people crunching the numbers, figuring out, trying to predict what happens that day, but actually politics is a dynamic process, meaning the coverage itself and people's understanding. It changes that people's views and people's opinions. So, even if you were able to and of course, polling is not this exact, but even if you were able to determine with 100% accuracy exactly what the outcome of the election were to be, if it was held on, say, August 1st, 2024, instead of in November, it would not tell you the outcome because there's those months and people are human beings who are changing their minds based on information that they are collecting. So, there really isn't much value to this. I think it's become popular for a couple of reasons. One is, it's a great way to avoid seeming biased in one way or another. When you're talking about the data, there's an objectivity to it. We're not talking about what the impact of this policy would be, or that policy, and having to make kind of embed some value judgments, or at least open us up to being seen as biased in that way. We're just talking about the numbers. Secondly, there's always a lot of angst within the public about what is going to happen on both sides. So, you're playing into that angst because people want assurances. They want to resolve that uncertainty. The uncertainty cannot be resolved, but it these, you know, the graphs that are produced, the trends, the percentages. You can look on Kalshi, you can say, okay, well who's going to win in 2028? Okay. Well, looks like, you know, this person has a 34% chance. Okay. Well, I know that that person has a 34% chance now. So now I have less uncertainty about, and there's only a 1% chance that this person will win. Okay, so now I think I have less uncertainty about it. You don't really, but you think you do.
CORY BARKER: If you’re just joining us, this is News Over Noise. I’m Cory Barker. [And I’m Matt Jordan.] We’re talking with Judd Leg-um, founder and editor of Popular Information, about prediction markets, their growing role in news coverage, and what that means for accountability journalism and a free press. When we talk about these particular agreements or integrations with CNN and CNBC and Kalshi, what does that look like? What type of partnerships are we seeing? How is this actually influencing or plan to influence the coverage that we see on these cable channels, on their websites, in their various digital platforms?
JUDD LEGUM: I think, you know, these are relatively new agreements. So, I think to a certain extent, we're still learning what that will look like. Already we have seen as issues are being discussed, they'll display the betting odds on a particular issue. What might happen. You know, is Trump going to invade Venezuela. You know. Well, again. And we'll see the odds of that happening. And I also think because they have this arrangement and we're not sure about the financial particulars, it does create conflicts because it incentivizes certain kinds of coverage. Meaning if these deals and this is speculative now, but if these deals involve, say, these networks getting a cut of increased betting activity around certain news events, it could incentivize covering them in ways that might drive more betting. And that is a substantively different kind of coverage than if you were just trying to inform people to the maximum extent possible.
MATT JORDAN: You know, it's interesting these they're classified as derivative markets technically. So, insider trading is legal or legit, I guess I should say. Instead of buying a commodity or buying a concept, what is there to protect consumers who happen to engage with these platforms from fraud? You know, there's a lot of speculation out there that Karoline Leavitt stopped her press conference short the other day because there was a prediction market position on 65 minutes. And so, this kind of created a buzz around it. So, what's to keep actors like that? Who could control these things from putting a position down and then making sure they win?
JUDD LEGUM: I think the answer is very little. Now these markets, including Kalshi, they do have rules that would prevent somebody like Karoline Leavitt or people who are talking to her or know you know her from using that information to bet in that market. You know, and they actually have a list, you know, you can you can go on their website and if you dig around enough, you can find the list of interested parties who are prohibited in each market. The problem is one that's not a legal restriction. And secondly, what is the enforcement mechanism? And, as far as we know, I mean, these there's no, you know, Kalshi doesn't have the ability to be inside the white House and figure out who Karoline Leavitt’s talking to. You know, that's just not going to happen. You know, there are sort of general restrictions against fraud. Maybe you could argue that if there was some sort of conspiracy to, you know, stop a press conference earlier and there was somebody betting based on that information, that that would be sort of generalized fraud. But unlike the FCC, which has very robust enforcement mechanisms and has a whole history of doing this, the CFTC is much more limited in their investigatory capacity and has no experience whatsoever investigating markets like this. You know, these kind of prediction markets. As you mentioned, it's traditionally, you know, derivative markets for commodities. So, they're not used to looking at, these prediction markets. So, there's, there's very little protection for the consumer. And as these things get more and more specific, more and more random, where it's literally just one person deciding to say a word or to do a thing, it becomes much more, you know, subject to abuse.
CORY BARKER: You hit on this a little bit, but what do you feel like these types of partnerships or integrations say about how corporate news companies view their audience and view their overall mission?
JUDD LEGUM: Well, I think that they are increasingly desperate to avoid any allegation of bias, either by their audience, but especially from the current administration. And I think they view this kind of coverage as sort of a very attractive, kind of sexy way to cover the news that doesn't have those issues. In fact, there's a lot of people associated with the Trump administration, Donald Trump Jr. and others who are integrated within this crowd, the boards of these of these companies or advisory boards. So that's what I think it's really about. They're looking for ways to do this. And I think they're also looking for new ways to bring in revenue.
MATT JORDAN: So, you know, these things claim to be better prognostic tools than polls. The CEO said Kalshi is replacing debate subjectivity in talk with markets, accuracy and truth. Is this a positive development for deliberative democracy to have debate and subjectivity replaced with markets, accuracy and truth?
JUDD LEGUM: I think even if that were true, it would not be positive. But I think the in addition to not being positive, I think it's also not true. The problem is, is that these markets are incredibly subject to manipulation. I think particularly in the political context. I think the, the latest data I saw for 2025 was that Kalshi was something like $50 billion as far as the, you know, the scope of how much money is being bet lot. That's a lot of money. $50 million is a lot of money. But if you look at something like the stock market, I think it's close to $650 billion every day that's traded in stocks. So, you have essentially a tiny market and someone can very easily for probably well under, but, you know, at least no more than a couple of million dollars would it take to spike one of these markets, spike one candidate over another. I think that's where the CNN integration and integration with news organizations becomes particularly problematic because it sets up kind of this reinforcing cycle where you can get somebody with, with some cash, a couple of million dollars, you can pump it into a candidate that will drive positive coverage. Essentially, hey, this candidate has momentum. You know, maybe they'll talk about, oh, well, my why might they have this momentum? Well, they're delivering a really effective message on Social Security or whatever it happens to be. Then people know about that message that, you know, then it becomes more effective. The market goes up more. There's another story really just leaves it open for all sorts of kind of dirty tricks, behind the scenes stuff to manipulate things. And, and I don't think people have begun to really consider that. And if you think about the people who are most enthusiastic about these markets, people in, you know, the, the AI space, the crypto space, they're also some of the biggest players in politics these days. So, I don't think it's out of the. The crypto super PAC was the biggest one. And I think we're going to expect the new AI super PAC to be the biggest spender in 2026 and 2028. So, in the context of two, three, $500 million super PACs, you know, $1 million or 2 to, to spike a market and create a positive story for a favored candidate, I don't think it's out of the question. And you wouldn't even have to say, hey, this was manipulation. You could just say, hey, I believe in this guy. I believe he's running a good campaign, and I think he's going to win. That's why I put $1 million down on candidate X.
MATT JORDAN: Yeah, it's an agenda setting tool as well in terms of media.
JUDD LEGUM: Yeah.
MATT JORDAN: And so, I was looking at Peter Thiel has put, you know, 70 million into Kalshi. He also has a stake in Polymarket. Obviously, he's not a neutral player in this. So, I'm wondering if this that the I don't know, I'll just categorize them as anti-democracy forces. Might these prediction markets be forcing multipliers for bad faith messaging? And the people who are trying to manipulate the news?
JUDD LEGUM: Well… I think the way I look at it is it's a mechanism. I think there's a lot of problems with polling. Let me start there. Methodological problems. And then some of the problems I was talking about before that, it's a snapshot in time. But one thing you can say about polling is every person basically counts the same. This is really an effort by people like Peter Thiel and others to replace the person with the dollar, you know? And so, it's another way in which money is setting the agenda and money determines who has the best chance of winning. And I just don't really buy in the context of a presidential election where the basically the most powerful institution on earth, the United States federal government, is at stake, that, you know, markets of these size could even begin to be seen as objective rather than sort of tools to drive what the result might be. And so, I think it's very dangerous to the extent that people believe that these are more accurate, especially when there's absolutely no track record in which to base that on. You know, it's like, what are they basing that on? There's nothing. Like we don't have anything to base that on. Maybe one election at best, where we believe that where most people believed and it was of questionable legality for most of the election.
CORY BARKER: I feel like I know the answer to this, but do you have any sort of positive thoughts about this potential integration into the news product? Is there anything positive that we can take away from these kind of partnerships?
JUDD LEGUM: I don't view it particularly positively, as you might have gleaned by now. You know, I do think that when. When these when data, you know, if you kind of abstract it a bit more and you look at if you kind of lump, you know, group this in with polling and other forms essentially of gauging public opinion which is, which is what it's doing, I do think that there are positive ways in which that information can be used to inform the news, whether or not you're necessarily leading with that data itself. But, you know, in many cases, we have very popular policies that are sort of viewed as fringe policies because public opinion is ignored, to a certain extent. So, polling can obviously give you some of that insight. Could Kalshi give you that insight? Maybe it could. You know, maybe if these markets got big enough and, you know, a cross-section of people were using them, you could get that kind of insight. So, I think that's where I sort of see, I do think there are positive ways in which public opinion can inform news and to a certain extent, Kalshi is that. The issue with it now is that it is structured so that the, the, the loudest voices are the ones with the most money. So, I think it could also, you know, can kind of have a distorting effect, but maybe there's some way they could figure out to you kind of control for that or, or at least give you different metrics to get insight on that. Like maybe we could know how much money is on a particular position, but also, well, how many individual investors are on a particular position?
MATT JORDAN: Yeah. As you were saying that they're talking about public opinion and you were talking before about how this is kind of cedes things to a kind of financial logic, right? That where public opinion is not supposed to be something that you need to invest in to have. Right? And, you know, usually it works the other way when a company's trying to get your opinion through a poll, they often pay you. I mean, Nielsen is paying people now, you know, a lot of good polling have to because otherwise nobody picks up the phone. So, this idea that it's only the people that are willing to put their money in this are the ones that we are taking seriously because of whatever is rational agent theory or whatever they're using to make these seem more important. But there seems like fundamentally, in a democracy, you can have opinions and public opinion without being willing to invest it. And in fact, part of the when democracy functions well is when we're willing to change her opinion after hearing another side to an argument or rethinking an argument. I wondered to what extent this is, again, another way in which the world is being financialized, and how that will have a negative impact on our attempt to deliberate.
JUDD LEGUM: Yeah, and I think it's particularly problematic in the current context where you have severe wealth inequality. So, you have a certain percentage, I would say likely, fairly strong majority of the country is essentially financially locked out of these markets because they just don't have the money, disposable income to make any sort of significant investment, just like there's a certain percentage, you know, who are locked out of the stock market. And I think that the big difference here, you know, I think to the extent that, you know, the games aren't being fixed and things like that, a sports market, I can understand and kind of get behind the idea that, yeah, you know, money is going to reflect the best knowledge that we have. But that's because the game itself is the end of the equation, meaning, you know, if this, the Lions play the Chiefs, the, the impact of that effectively stops at the end of the game. It's a win or loss and that's it. There's no greater societal impact. With politics, the downstream effects do not end on Election Day. They keep going. So, there's lots of reasons why you might want to sort of tilt the scales towards one or the other that go beyond simply your sort of best understanding of what you think the outcome will be.
MATT JORDAN: Well, Judd, thanks so much for opening up a place for us to think about this together and for, discussing this. I think you're right that this is going to be, increasingly something to pay attention to. So, thanks again for being with us.
JUDD LEGUM: Thanks for having me.
MATT JORDAN: That’s it for this episode of News Over Noise. Our guest was Judd Legum, founder and editor of Popular Information. To learn more, visit news-over-noise.org. I’m Matt Jordan.
CORY BARKER: And I’m Cory Barker.
MATT JORDAN: Until next time, stay well and well-informed. News Over Noise is produced by the Penn State Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and WPSU. This program has been funded by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost of Penn State, and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]
Episode Credits:
Producer: Lindsey Whissel Fenton
Audio Engineers: Mickey Klein, Scott Gros, Clint Yoder
News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications. This program has been funded by the office of the Executive Vice President and Provost at Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.
