Now for your next moneymaking scheme…

I know a guy who does work for a CBS competition show (you can guess which one), and he’s been making a little side money on the prediction apps. It’s actually pretty easy. Polymarket, Kalshi, and the others are available and legal in California and feature tons of “markets”—their word for gambling lines—on everything from sporting events to political elections to, yes, entertainment outcomes.

There’s a bunch of obvious Hollywood questions on these apps. Who’s the next James Bond? Callum Turner, who seems to be telling anyone who’ll listen that he wants the role even though Amazon and the creative team won’t make a decision until they get the script later this spring, has a far-too-large 47 percent chance on Kalshi, and Jacob Elordi is second at 22 percent. Will Paramount close its deal for Warner Bros. Discovery? That’s sitting at just 70 percent yes on Polymarket, despite today’s shareholder approval. Who will replace Lorne Michaels at SNL? Seth Meyers (53 percent) is currently beating Steve Higgins (45 percent) and Tina Fey (19 percent), per Kalshi.

There’s also a bunch of extremely niche and—this is key— knowable queries. Will Netflix release new episodes of Outer Banks before July? Will Timothée Chalamet show up at the Met Gala? And yes, who will win Survivor 50? (Aubry Bracco currently has a 79 percent chance, per Kalshi, with Cirie Fields at 11 percent.)

Silly stuff, but thousands and sometimes millions of dollars are being wagered, despite the fact that many of these markets can be gamed by people in the entertainment industry who have access to the exact information at issue—people like you and me and, say, a guy who does some work for a certain CBS competition show and thus knows which contestants are eliminated each week.

Take Outer Banks. Hundreds of people, both at Netflix and on the representative teams of its cast and creators, have access to release dates for the new season. How many of those recently laid-off marketing people at Disney know when the Avengers: Doomsday trailer will drop? There’s a 60 percent chance on Kalshi of that happening before June, so if you know it’s attached to Mandalorian and Grogu over Memorial Day weekend, that’s easy money. Chalamet’s team (and their assistants), brand coordinators, event planners, seating arrangers, people at Vogue—they’re all familiar with whether he’s going to the Met Gala. Plans can change, but throwing some money on that market seems like a no-brainer. And so on.

It’s kinda amazing that these markets exist, considering there’s a news story almost every day about some alleged abuse of the system. Just today, a U.S. soldier who helped capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was charged by the feds for winning more than $400,000 on Polymarket by betting on that outcome. There’s widespread suspicion that Trump friends and even people in the administration are wagering along with professional traders on markets associated with the president’s erratic moves on everything from tariffs to Iran to whether he says “Ozempic” or “fat shot” at a healthcare press conference. (That last one was a real market today.) Nothing matters these days, everything is rigged, members of Congress are allowed to buy and sell stocks that their decisions impact, and these prediction markets exist to let anyone participate in that game. So the real question is why, given how tough the entertainment industry is these days, more Hollywood people aren’t profiting off them?

It’s not quite that simple, of course. As that soldier learned, the answer to the question Is this allowed? is kinda no and kinda yes. Bets on these apps are public, meaning the companies know who’s doing what. Kalshi, which is regulated via the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, says it functions similarly to the regular stock market and thus has specific policies against “insiders” and those bound by nondisclosure agreements using unique knowledge to profit. So if someone from the Academy or PwC places a bunch of huge bets on the Oscars on the morning of the show, a red flag goes up. “If the person knows by virtue of having a special access point, then yes, that would be considered a violation of their duty and not allowed,” Robert DeNault, head of enforcement at Kalshi, told me yesterday, just after three congressional candidates were fined and suspended by the platform for betting on their own races. In the entertainment space, an editor at MrBeast’s company was outed earlier this yearby Kalshi for suspicious bets and subsequently fired.

But… enforcement actions are rare, given all the activity on the platforms, and they’re often triggered by extremely high-value and one-time bets—obvious stuff. Kalshi says the average trade is $200, so suspicious, out-of-the-ordinary action is relatively easy to spot. About 70 percent of activity is on sports, excluding parlays, and in the past 10 months, entertainment and culture bets have totaled only about $1 billion, a relatively small percentage of the overall action. It’s pretty simple to fly under the radar with a wager here and there, or have a friend or relative place the bets—though Kalshi says that’s verboten too if, like with the real stock market, the friend knows they’re trading on inside info. “We take it on a case-by-case basis,” DeNault added.

Polymarket is regulated under U.S. laws as well, but it also operates an offshore platform with more exotic bets and almost no oversight. In fact, John Oliver just aired an amusing segment quoting Polymarket’s C.E.O. basically encouraging insiders to bet. People like Timmy’s assistant or a disgruntled Disney publicist making wagers on outcomes they know are gonna happen, he’s argued, do a public good by bringing new information to the market. Okay…

It sounds crazy, but until states or the federal government make this stuff illegal, it’s a bit of a free-for-all. Even the C.F.T.C. is run by a very Trumpy, pro-prediction-markets cheerleader, not a guy who seems like he’s itching to crack down. Which means, if the bettors are smart and relatively incognito, it’s up to individual companies in Hollywood to police their actions. Most employers around town require that company information remain private, of course—though I’d argue that quietly betting online is different from publicly disclosing secrets. And most productions require that participants sign nondisclosure agreements, which often outlaw gambling based on inside knowledge. CBS cast and crew agreements contain that language, for instance, though I’m told the company is discussing adding specific mention of the Kalshi/Polymarket prediction markets for future production cycles of Survivor. Others are getting more specific and draconian about it. WWE, which is especially susceptible to prediction markets because the wrestling matches are scripted, has informed its key producers and writers that anyone caught betting on an outcome will be swiftly piledriven out of the company.

Don’t get me wrong, the gamification of everything is extremely gross, as is the willingness of news outlets like CNN and Fox News to accept large bags of cash in exchange for incorporating prediction markets into coverage. Forbes ran a news article recently on a mass shooting that included a ”ForbesPredict” widget encouragingbets on upcoming gun control regulation. Yuck. Lots of people in town thought the Golden Globes incorporating Polymarket odds into January’s show was super tacky, even for the Globes.

Despite the grossness, insider wagering is definitely going on, though I couldn’t find anyone willing to discuss it on the record. (One friend admitted that he bet on the next Bond being Aaron Taylor-Johnson based on what he thought was inside info, but it turned out to be B.S.) The reasons are simple: People are very pissed off about the state of the entertainment industry, and many of us see the rampant corruption in the federal government and the seemingly rigged markets elsewhere and start wondering, Why shouldn’t I get a piece?

To be clear—very clear, Mr. C.F.T.C.—I haven’t made any of these insidery trades, even though it’s unclear whether, by definition, information is secret when a journalist knows it. Most media outlets forbid such profiteering from the job. I remember back in the summer of 2018, when I found out Ronan Farrow’s exposé of Les Moonves in The New Yorker would drop the next morning, I joked with Kim Masters in my officeat The Hollywood Reporter that we both could make a lot of money shorting the CBS stock. (We didn’t.) But I have been betting a little on awards shows this season under the theory that I have a better idea of who’s gonna get nominated and win than most people. I won a few hundred bucks on Kate Hudson, but Ariana Grande totally screwed me by getting shut out for Wicked: For Good.

That’s different than having actual knowledge of the voting results, of course, but these days, it seems like nobody cares if anyone in Hollywood lives or dies or goes bankrupt, so maybe we might as well benefit a little from the access this industry provides.

See you Monday,
Matt

Got a question, comment, complaint, or a Kalshi market for what Graydon Carter will wear to his Cannes party? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.

You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with {{customer.email}}. To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click here.

Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St., New York, NY 10006