Last week, Forbes announced ForbesPredict, its own foray into the current trend of gamifying the question of “what fresh hell.” Unlike Polymarket or Kalshi, no money will change hands here: Forbes readers will make forecasts on the news in exchange for Forbes’ own tokens. This is an important distinction on a practical and legal level–as Forbes writes in its news release, “There's no wagering, no leverage, no regulatory burden”--but a meaningless one in terms of how the rise of prediction markets is rotting journalism.
ForbesPredict, aiming to release in beta in February, is the outlet’s effort to staunch the bleed of Google traffic and the rise of AI. “ForbesPredict gives our audience a reason to return, participate and invest their thinking — not just consume headlines,” says Chief Innovation Officer Nina Gould in the company’s release. The idea seems to be that predicting news outcomes will keep readers hanging around on Forbes, as well as encourage them to give Forbes more of their sweet, sweet first-party data in exchange for tokens. The company also sees value here for its writers, with Forbes CEO Sherry Phillips saying that “We also think it will help to keep our newsroom informed of what our audiences are thinking on topics we cover, and we’re excited to see how that informs our storytelling.”
All of this is, admittedly, an innovation on the rise of prediction markets in journalism. CNN and CNBC have joined forces with Kalshi to feature Kalshi data on their news broadcasts; Yahoo Finance and Dow Jones have partnered with Polymarket. These companies are tripping over themselves to try to explain why a bunch of randos prognosticating for cash on an unknowable future in our increasingly unpredictable and cash-strapped times is actually meaningful information instead of sweaty bullshit, but as Status News points out,
Notably, most news organizations did not include prediction market odds in their coverage prior to striking what are likely lucrative deals with companies like Kalshi and Polymarket. That suggests they did not actually find the data to be very informative for viewers prior to inking fruitful agreements.
Dow Jones claims its Polymarket partnership will “help consumers better interpret market sentiment;” CNBC and CNN both believe Kalshi “has become the definitive source for staying informed about the future.” Forbes at least recognizes the misinterpretation of scale here, with CEO of its tech partner Axiom Jeff Yam noting that “Real-money prediction markets are built for a niche audience.” Forbes’ platform is at least built for its own niche audience, while the money-based prediction markets have spilled over their own borders to gain an outsized presence in how news outlets imagine the opinions and values of regular people. But this doesn’t offset the fact that everyone here is legitimizing the idea that these systems are information and not just a cacophony of self-interested braying or gamified hopelessness that’s both the symptom and the disease of exactly how shit it is to live in our current world.
That something is just noise doesn’t make it entirely meaningless; much hay was made over a $400k payout on Polymarket regarding the presidency of Nicolás Maduro that suggested someone had foreknowledge of Trump’s strike on Venezuela and wanted to make some money off that fact. There are likely insiders out there manipulating prediction markets to their own ends, and this could be a kind of source of a kind of information. But it could just as easily be trolling, luck, or efforts to fuck with public sentiment, journalists and their readers.
Prediction markets aren’t news, and they aren’t audience research beyond the fact that people like gambling. Tech companies know they can profit off this (don’t get me started on the app where you can gamble on your own bills), and news outlets are willing to let themselves be taken for a ride because they, like prediction markets’ users, are desperate for funds and short on places to get it. Everyone in these situations is manipulating and being manipulated. There is no value in pretending otherwise except to secure your own bag, whether out of greed or legitimately limited options. But the more that news outlets turn to these platforms, the more false meaning these systems threaten to take on, and the more warped and potentially influential their false promise becomes.
These partnerships and products are outlets throwing up their hands at the growing challenge of telling people the truth because they believe the truth matters, joining the fray they employ journalists to see through. The promise of gambling is the promise of a quick fix, and as nice as it might be to pretend otherwise, there isn’t one coming. But that doesn’t mean news outlets have to descend into the same desperate nihilism that fuels prediction markets, especially in a time when journalists’ duty to cut through the noise is more important than ever. I’m not going to pretend everyone, news outlets and bettors alike, doesn’t need money, but there has to be a better way to get it.
Nathan Grayson
