Consistent with the United States’ continued slide into an economy powered almost entirely by LLM slop, financialization, and ever-pervasive exploitative gambling, “prediction market app” Kalshi “entered into an official partnership” with CNN this week to bring their “data to CNN’s journalism across its television, digital and social channels.” Soon, CNN will run live odds on world events where its viewers can gamble on them in real time on their smartphones. The “data” (see: betting markets) will, according to Axios, “be featured on CNN’s air through a real-time data ticker and can be referenced across CNN’s platforms when journalists discuss news predictions. The partnership will include prediction market content related to politics, news, culture and weather. The integration will be championed by CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten, who will tap into real-time insights from Kalshi in his reporting on air, both via linear TV and CNN’s new streaming subscription service.”
The day after this story broke, Wall Street news network CNBC announced a similar “exclusive partnership” with Kalshi, marking a grim turn for TV news. “Starting in 2026, CNBC will incorporate exclusive Kalshi predictions market data [see: betting props] into its programs,” the press release read. What are these events that viewers will be able to bet on? Some are seemingly harmless enough: who will win an upcoming election, the weather in Chicago, the federal government’s jobs numbers, or what will be said on Kroger’s next earnings call. But many offerings are on life and death issues that will, as a matter of course, reduce these issues to just another chip on a roulette table for Western audiences increasingly isolated from the violence and suffering their governments inflict on the global south. Take, for example, one recent Kalshi betting market that allowed people to bet on whether Palestinians in Gaza would suffer mass starvation.
“Will the IPC classify Gaza as experiencing famine this year?” read the wager from this past summer. The bet was eventually settled in the affirmative after the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) did indeed declare famine in Gaza on Aug. 22. The more overtly cynical Polymarket, a rival of Kalshi that’s backed by right-wing multibillionaire Peter Thiel, allows for even more obscene wagering, permitting users to bet on whether Palestinians will be ethnically cleansed. “Gaza mass population relocation in 2025?” reads one of its many Gaza-related betting markets. You can also bet on when Israel will bomb Gaza, bomb the West Bank, or annex either.
One cannot, of course, wager on when or if Hamas will attack Israel since, in polite circles, Israelis are considered fully human and Palestinians are not.
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