‘A Rigged and Dangerous Product’: The Wildest Week for Prediction Markets Yet
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As the prediction market boom continues, backlash is growing, too, with Arizona filing criminal charges against Kalshi and public outcry after Polymarket traders threatened a journalist.
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Kate Knibbs Business Mar 20, 2026 5:07 PM ‘A Rigged and Dangerous Product’: The Wildest Week for Prediction Markets Yet As the prediction market boom continues, backlash is growing, too, with Arizona filing criminal charges against Kalshi and public outcry after Polymarket traders threatened a journalist. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Getty Images Save this story Save this story Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour posted a video on Wednesday of six men decked out in business casual doing push-ups on the sidewalk. “This is how Kalshi Q1 board meeting ended,” he wrote on X. The board members are laughing and smiling in the video after their impromptu cardio session, and the mood is jubilant. The next day, it became clear that the team had ample reason to celebrate: Kalshi had just raised $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation, making the company worth on paper roughly double what it was only a few months ago. The funding round represented a bright spot during one of the most turbulent weeks for the prediction market industry yet. In just the past five days, Nevada temporarily banned Kalshi by issuing a temporary restraining order and Arizona filed criminal charges accusing it of running an illegal gambling business; an Israeli reporter said that he received an avalanche of threats from Polymarket traders furious about how a story he wrote impacted their wagers; Polymarket scored a major deal with Major League Baseball, further entrenching itself in the world of professional sports; and US Senators introduced legislation to ban specific types of markets offered by the industry, including any involving “government actions, terrorism, war, assassination, and events where an individual knows or controls the outcome.” It is the latest in a series of bills intended to place guardrails around the prediction industry. Senator Chris Murphy, a cosponsor of the bill and one of the industry’s most outspoken critics, said in an interview with WIRED that prediction markets are “a rigged and dange...
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