There Are No Girls on the Internet - Polymarket Wants to Girlboss Women Into Gambling

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi want more women to start betting, BUT they’re not necessarily calling it gambling. In part two, Bridget looks at how Love Island, influencers, reali...ty TV, and the language of financial empowerment are being used to bring women into prediction markets, why regulators are fighting over whether these platforms are gambling at all, and what happens when practically anything becomes something you can bet on.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:02:50 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. We are back. And that's right, we are still coming to you from beautiful Bahamas here in the Bahamas. We are on the most beautiful island recording. at Bahamas, beautiful studio space with Engineer Brie. I honestly cannot say enough good things about how lovely it is here. It looks so cool in here that a group of women actually, as we were setting up, getting ready to start, they just burst in and kind of low-key demanded that we talk to them. And before you ask, yes, they were.
Starting point is 00:03:30 If you know, you know, I don't need to say anything else. But I mean that lovingly, because it was sort of a world. a group of girls on a girl's trip. A request was made. I guess it wasn't even really a request. It was a demand. That was somewhere in the gray area between a request and a man. But they were really nice.
Starting point is 00:03:48 They seemed like they're having fun. And we were talking to engineer Bree about it. And she pointed out that something about like seeing a microphone set up, seeing a podcast setup really invites people to want to investigate and participate as well. Yeah, as somebody who usually, whenever I travel, like I've never taken a real non-working vacation. Every time I go anywhere, I have my podcast mic with me. And I've had to podcast from some pretty gnarly places, like on my stomach, like laying on my stomach in the corner of a hotel floor, because I had to do an interview after checkout time, you know, like that kind of situation.
Starting point is 00:04:29 And any other situation, people will just like walk see you and keep on walking. you're talking into a microphone. People are like, oh, what do you do at a podcast? Oh, you don't want your boss to know that you're actually recording from a different location. And so you're pretending that you're at home, but really you're in a hotel. Let me get on the mic. Like, you know, is this something about a microphone invites people to come right in, sit down, ask questions. Don't I know it.
Starting point is 00:04:55 Yeah. It reminds me of what you often say about podcasting. It's like such an intimate medium that invites connection. So I guess this is like the part and parcel. of that. So this is part two of a two-part episode about women and prediction markets like Polymarket. Now, if you did not listen to Part 1, you should definitely start there. But to recap, I talked about how Amanda Hirsch, the host of the Not Skinny Not That podcast, posted a sponsored ad for the prediction market, polymarket, on Instagram, essentially inviting people to
Starting point is 00:05:30 bet on the trial of Lindsay Clancy. Lindsay Clancy, of course, as the woman who killed her three children. Now, this sponsored post was in poor taste to say the very least. Amanda deleted it and apologized, but it was yet another example of some of the, in my opinion, misguided ways prediction markets like polymarket are going hard for women by encouraging us to bet on cultural moments. From really heavy, dark moments like the Lindsay Clancy trial, to stuff like the outcome of reality television shows. all while these companies tell us it's empowering. So, as I said, Kelchie was using this season of Love Island this summer as their big draw to women.
Starting point is 00:06:18 But prediction markets can transform almost any uncertain cultural outcome into something wagerable that you can bet on. Markets have appeared around subjects including reality show outcomes, awards, music, celebrity, weather, politics, entertainment releases, television competitions. And obviously, as we were talking about before, human suffering and tragedy like the Lindsay Clancy trial. So the larger product proposition is almost limitless. If an event can have an observable yes, no outcome, somebody somewhere can potentially create a market around it that you can bet on. And this really matters because traditional sports betting require a consumer to care and know about sports,
Starting point is 00:07:01 but prediction markets don't. Someone's expertise around anything. The Bachelor, Love Island, Celebrity Gossip, Survivor, Politics, whether a woman will be convicted for murdering her babies can be used. And I think that's really what makes women's non-sport betting look different from traditional sports betting. That Sacred Heart Survey that I keep referencing has some pretty useful independent data here. Among the respondents who had made non-sports bets, women's choices differed from men's. Among those female non-sports betters, 43.3% said they had wagered on award shows, 40.6% said they had wagered on reality TV outcomes. Men who made non-sports bets were more likely than women to report wagering on politics and elections or finance or cryptocurrency.
Starting point is 00:07:50 I have a friend who realized kind of before the sports betting, polymarket, kowshey stuff took off that he had a problem with gambling. but he told me that he realized that he had a problem when there was no sports happening and he was putting money on the outcome of the Latin Grammys. And he was like, this is how I know I have a problem that I'm like getting into niche award show programming to just to scratch the itch. And what's funny is that from all of this, this was before you could, you know, bet on anything, really. This was like a very unusual thing to be betting on.
Starting point is 00:08:27 Had he been experiencing that today in 2020? that might be so normalized that might not even have been the thing that led him to understand that he had a problem around gambling. Wow, that's so interesting. It's like sort of the process we were talking about of people betting on their non-sports expertise, but like taking that even further when it becomes a problem to betting on areas that are outside of one's expertise just for the thrill of betting. Just to feel something, man. I get it. I get it.
Starting point is 00:08:57 So all this expansion of the domains in which people, people are betting and the marketing that companies are doing to women. Is there evidence that it's working? What do women think about this? I guess we've seen a little bit of evidence, but is there more? So the short answer is kind of. I found this March 26th study published in BMC Public Health that specifically examined new gambling industry strategies aimed at women, among a sample of young women living in Australia. The researchers studied women's perceptions of marketing tactics, including things like influencers and celebrities, the novelty of betting markets, women's sports, social media promotions,
Starting point is 00:09:35 gambling companies associating themselves with women's causes, and gender equity messaging. The authors began from a documented shift, right? Gambling marketing has historically focused mostly on young men, but the industry, as we said, is increasingly adopting strategies designed specifically to appeal to women. So women in this study believed the tactics could actually normalize gambling and attract women who might not otherwise gamble. So it's exactly what you were just talking about, that normalization. The study wasn't asking them whether or not they think this is good or bad or they approve,
Starting point is 00:10:10 basically just like, can you see this being an effective way of normalizing this kind of behavior among women? And they basically said yes. Participants described some of these strategies as making gambling seem harmless, normal, fun, socially acceptable. and my personal least favorite, sometimes even empowering. So it sounds like the women were really picking up on exactly the messages that the advertisers were trying to give them. Pretty much. I love these, like, qualitative studies of interviews of people because you can just, like, really get some good quotes. of people like really speaking, like a real truth that can often elude more quantitative measures
Starting point is 00:11:02 of like big surveys with thousands of people, you know? Were there any particularly good quotes in this one? I really like this one. And it really kind of reminds me of what we were talking about with the Lindsay Clancy trial. Quote, it's a slippery slope. They start with something small, fun, and aligned with your interests. But before you know it, you're betting on things you never even thought you'd care about. it is dangerous. That is from one 33-year-old who participated in this study.
Starting point is 00:11:29 So I mentioned that my least favorite bucket of thing that's marketing around gambling that these women could see as being effective was marketing gambling to women as empowering. There is not enough time for me to get into how much I hate this. And it reminds me of this kind of just familiar commercial and cultural pattern. where something that has historically and traditionally been coded as male just gets repackaged for women using this very empty language of empowerment. I think the reason I hate it so much is that it feels insulting to me that they would just like slap women's empowerment on something and they think I'm stupid enough that that's going to actually feel like meaningfully empowering to me.
Starting point is 00:12:18 The classic example I'm sure everybody listening knows is remember those old Virginia Slims, So Virginia Slims are the cigarette that they're really thin and they're sort of marketed for, like a cigarette for women. And their marketing slogan, I know you know it, Mike. Do you remember what it was? Oh, we've come a long way, baby. We've come a long way, baby. And it was this, I guess, nominally feminist sounding slogan to try to get women to smoke more cigarettes. I guess it's meant to sort of be like commemorating how far women have come.
Starting point is 00:12:53 smoke a cigarette. This was back in 1968. Yeah. Listeners know that I spent a lot of time in tobacco control studying tobacco companies. And that wasn't the first time that they explicitly tried linking women's empowerment with smoking cigarettes. Back in 1929, the American Tobacco Company organized a group of women to March Down Fifth Avenue in New York City, all holding cigarettes and they called them Torches of Freedom trying to link cigarette smoking. to the suffragette movement just like very explicitly trying to break this taboo
Starting point is 00:13:31 of women's smoking which at the time was like somewhat taboo and they worked on it for decades until they got to Virginia Slims that very thin slender cigarette somehow that really clicked for them and I don't want to go too far down this tangent but the other day it was out
Starting point is 00:13:51 they had these new ultra ultra ultra-thin cigarettes. Have you seen them? I have seen them. They're like comically thin. They're like the width of a lollipop stick because I guess Virginia Slims were just like not thin enough. So they're still at it, right? They've been at, that was 1929 they organized that March. Almost a hundred years of just hammering away at trying to get women to smoke. I hate this. Again, I am somebody who is very comfortable, maybe too comfortable with vice. just don't tell me that it's empowering.
Starting point is 00:14:25 The whole point of vice is that I don't need you to sell me on it being good for me. That's why I'm doing it actually. Like I'm not doing it to feel empowered. I just hate it from so many different angles I hate it. So those are some examples from back in the day. Here in 2026, we have seen so many updated versions of companies using empowerment marketing to try to sell something historically associated with men to women. I've seen it in the investing space, the entrepreneurship,
Starting point is 00:14:52 space, the crypto space, alcohol, wellness, consumer finances. And now prediction markets are in a very similar position. And what they're basically saying to women, they're saying things that I believe to be true about women, and then making that rhetorical jump and saying, this is why you should be betting with our prediction markets. Right. So like, women, you have been historically overlooked and not listened to. Your expertise, which we know that you have, has been devalued. Your opinions have value. You have expertise. You have expertise. Why should guys be the only ones making money from expertise? It's so good but so callous how they're exploiting the things that actually are true about women,
Starting point is 00:15:34 that we actually are, you know, do have expertise that is easily overlooked. We actually do have opinions that are often neglected and not listen to. And like turning that in on itself and saying, here's why you should waste your fucking money on our prediction ads is just so deeply craven in callous. It is some Don Draper magic that they have been able to repackage this as anything approaching empowerment, let alone, like, just a good idea financially. Yeah. Yeah, I think Mad Men is such a great framework for thinking about how they do this. Least of all, because their primary client for many years was the American Tobacco Company, right?
Starting point is 00:16:20 Like they are right solidly in there. Mike and I are doing a Mad Men rewatch. I've been threatening for the longest time doing a madman rewatch podcast using your tobacco expertise because I think that would be good. I've been threatening this for a long time. We'll see if it ever comes to fruition. So as we talked about earlier, many of these examples from social media use amounts of money that seem very small.
Starting point is 00:16:45 $5 here, $10 there, enough to buy a coffee. And I think that that matters because just just like that college student who did her first bet on Love Island, it was only $10, putting $10 down on which Love Island couple is going to make it to the finals, show that you watch every week and already have an opinion on, that seems really different than asking somebody to walk into a casino or go to a lottery counter and put a lot of money down, right? Like that feels very different. And I think that that immediate financial risk being small matters. Because even though that immediate financial risk might be small, it's only $10, from the customer acquisition perspective, that first consequential action, that first $10 you put down on something, that gets you to create an account, deposit some money, connect a payment method, make a first trade, permit notifications, and just kind of like get familiar with the interface.
Starting point is 00:17:38 How many times if you downloaded an app and then the first thing they ask you for is your financial information or something? And you're like, I thought this was free. I'm not doing this. and you nope out. A lot of people probably will just continue to nope out. But for some people, they probably are like, okay, I'll give them my financial information. And again, even if it's that one low stakes, low risk, $10, that creates somebody who is now comfortable in that interface who might start coming back, like create a habit or change behavior around having done that. So if they can get you to break the seal and take that first step, that's pretty valuable. Yeah, absolutely. We see that
Starting point is 00:18:13 all over the place in business and organizing, you know, people talk about the foot in the door approach, just getting somebody to take that first step to do it that first time makes it so much more likely they're going to do it a second time. And I've looked at some of the ads around how they kind of talk about this for women. It really reminds me of the language of AI marketing toward women right now that I think is preying on women's fear of missing out on something that could be financially lucrative or financially stabilizing from them, even if in reality that thing is not
Starting point is 00:18:48 actually financially, you know, beneficial at all. I think the way that prediction markets are marketing toward people specifically women, I think that they are trying to capture and kind of, I won't say like prey on, but kind of speak to, I think this feeling that a lot of us feel right now, this feeling of instability and worry and confusion around finances and the financial world, you know, I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of financial expert, but like, it is difficult to know where your money is safest, you know, whether that's in real estate or the stock market or in a coffee can under your bed or in your savings. Like, like, things feel very volatile right now. And I think that these companies are really praying on that, especially when it
Starting point is 00:19:38 comes to women, right? And they're rebranding gambling. as potentially a smart financial choice, the same way they did with crypto, the same way they did with NFTs, and I would have you, in my opinion, the same way they're doing with AI adoption. Again, it's one thing to market this as, this is just going to give you a thrill.
Starting point is 00:19:59 It's vice, it's just fun. You just do it for fun, not that big of a deal. I don't happen to agree with that, but I get that. Remarketing this as this is what savvy financial people do. You're not gambling. you're making a prediction on a prediction market. I just don't like the attempt at the rebrand. Well, and I think the smart marketing play is to market on both, right?
Starting point is 00:20:22 Like, when you are placing the bet or buying the future of the market or whatever the terminology is, it's just fun. You know, it's only $10. You're betting on the outcome of a show that you like, like Love Island. This is just like a fun thing to do. The stakes aren't really that high. but you could potentially win like big money, you know? And so if you win, it's a positive financial decision that you have made. If you lose, it's no big deal.
Starting point is 00:20:55 It's only fun. You get to have it both ways. I hadn't even thought about that, but I think you're so right. As humans, we love to find justifications for things we want to do, even if that requires some logic that does not necessarily hold up. to the light of day if we like really sketch it all out. And companies know this, right? Like that's, I think part of the challenge of the regulators thinking about how to
Starting point is 00:21:25 regulate this industry when it's being presented as a commodity future trading enterprise, which is, you know, something that historically has been regulated from a framework of businesses making rational decisions. But now all of a sudden, the same regulating entities are being asked to regulate a very personal behavior where the individual psychology of individual people is coming into play. And emotions and the potential for addiction are just like a bigger part of it. It's a real mismatch in terms of how the regulation is happening for these small bets that, people are making in entertainment, uh, and, and also sports, really, for both men and women's sports. Let's take a quick break.
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Starting point is 00:24:41 you better be hitting the ground going hard in the South. Now. And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts. Or wherever you get your podcasts. The WNBA playoffs are about to begin. The talent is insane and the personalities are giving main character energy. And of course, the fans love it. But 30 years ago, when the league first started, it was a different story.
Starting point is 00:25:06 I remember sitting with a couple of male writers all whining about, oh, what are they going to do if they break a nail? No one's going to show up. But from the very beginning, there were two teams that captured everyone's attention. The Comets were the real deal. I mean, come on. The Liberty never gave up. They never stopped fighting.
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Starting point is 00:25:59 Is there bad blood between you in the comments as you guys meet again in the championship? Oh, we're coming back to win. Hey, what's up y'all? It's Questlove. and on the Questlove show, I've been sitting down with some really interesting people, and I've got two recent episodes you should check out. I caught up with my good friend Jojo to talk about her music, her career, and what she's been up to. Don't invite me to karaoke. I'm going to make it weird.
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Starting point is 00:27:45 Places and situations that you don't really find yourself in unless you are like intending to gamble. But now there's this new customer journey that could start. with open up TikTok. You see a creator like the host of a Not Skinny Not That podcast. She's talking about a pop culture prediction. You open the app, you make a deposit, you start making trades. So just like that young woman who said that she had never thought about gambling until she saw that sponsored ad on social media that led her to placing our first ever bet on the outcome of Love Island, the gambling opportunity now meets these new users in their existing media routines, right? It's just happening on TikTok. And that distinction really matters when the advertising
Starting point is 00:28:27 itself mimics normal creator content, like what we're seeing from podcasts like Call Her Daddy and Not Skinny, Not Bad, right? Who have both done these polymarket partnerships in ways that just feel like regular content, not necessarily advertising for gambling, right? Which is what they actually are. In that Atlantic piece I was referencing earlier, they made this point that all of this prediction market ad content is meant to blend in and really look like and mirror ordinary women's lifestyle content. So I'm not saying that when Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy makes a polymarket ad, that it is inherently deceptive or I'm not even necessarily saying that it's inherently bad, but it does, I think, get blurry, right? It blurs the lines of this being regular women's
Starting point is 00:29:21 lifestyle content or pop culture content, and this being an ad for a gambling platform, which it absolutely is. The same way that Polly Market is, in my opinion, exploiting that blurriness around being both a media outlet and a gambling platform. It's the same kind of thing. It can make the boundary between content and gambling acquisition a lot less visually obvious. And importantly, it kind of seems like it could be working. There's just tremendous potential. There's just tremendous potential for these companies because advertising that young people see on social media can be actually very effective at getting them to change their behavior. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a big reason advertisers spend over $400 billion a year just in the United States.
Starting point is 00:30:09 They do it because it works. It's effective. Yeah. And so I guess that's my one of my big so what to the whole conversation is that I'm not just mad at not skinny, not bad, and because that Lindsay Clancy ad for polymarket was in poor taste, which it was. It can also make women who were not interested in gambling before see gambling as something that they might want to get involved in. Like it can really be effective. That sacred heart survey that I keep referencing, they found that 47.5% of adults aged 18 to 34 said that sports betting advertising had a great deal or some influence on the likelihood of them gambling. A different question. found that 42.3% of 18 to 34-year-olds
Starting point is 00:30:54 said that gambling promotions had at some point influenced them to open a new gambling account. That is crazy to me that, like, this is not just throwaway advertising. It sounds like it actually is having an impact. Yeah, and again, we would expect it to. I mean, for every ad that we see, they probably tested 10 or 20 that didn't work as well, right?
Starting point is 00:31:18 And the ones that actually worked because they measure, do they change people's attitudes? Those are the ones that they put money behind and run. And, you know, stepping back, as we mentioned, this podcast is supported by ads. It's not like advertising is inherently bad, but I think it's on all of us to really think about what is being marketed to us and make decisions about does it actually align with our values. Yeah. I do think that, listen, create. creators have to decide for themselves where their line is, but you can do that, right? And that's
Starting point is 00:31:56 another facet that I feel like is really coming up a lot around this is people grappling in real time with what it means when these big creators do take these kinds of partnerships. Like I can't speculate on how much money, not skinny, not that makes. It's a huge podcast. So like, probably, I'm not, they're probably doing much better than us. But dear, and dear media, again, is like a huge platform, I can't speak to how much they make. Call her daddy. I can't speak to that. Alex Cooper is the most successful female podcaster on the planet. That is a documented thing. Among podcasters, generally, she is among the most popular podcasters on the planet. Homegirl does not need the money. Like, when you get to be that big, it surprises me that would not
Starting point is 00:32:45 encourage you to be choosier about whose checks you take. When you're small, I get it. You got to take what you can get. I get it. It seems cattywampus to me. It seems like the bigger you get, the more choosy you would be able to be. Not, I'm so big, it doesn't matter. I mean, you have to wonder what direction causality runs here, right?
Starting point is 00:33:06 Like, being willing to work with anybody, I can see that would have advantages towards getting big in the first place. There's this, like, Latina money management. podcast that is hosted by Janice Torres and she posted today sometimes having a moral compass as a creator is frustrating as hell. You watch people like Mel Robbins,
Starting point is 00:33:25 Alex Cooper, and Amanda Kirsch keep getting rewarded with bigger platforms, louder praise, and fatter checks in exchange for having no integrity at all. Meanwhile, creators who give a fuck, especially women of color, are asking, is it harmful to my followers? Am I exploiting somebody with this partnership?
Starting point is 00:33:41 Do I actually believe in what I'm selling? And yes, that may mean slower growth for turning down money. But I refuse to believe the only way they become successful online is to abandon your values, platform harmful people, and treat controversy like a business model. I want the money. I want the reach. I want the influence. But I also want to recognize myself when I look in the mirror. Apparently, that makes me difficult to monetize. And girl felt, I really, I really feel that. And I think that's kind of the crux of the conversation. I don't think it's a neutral thing to help normalize what I think can be really destructive behavior.
Starting point is 00:34:25 I think that making it seem like betting, especially for women, is like a normal thing to do, I think is actually harmful to society, right? And so I do think that all of this kind of cultural programming and cultural outreach is working. That sacred heart study found that 74.6% of Americans now believe that sports gambling is becoming socially acceptable. Again, they didn't ask whether or not they personally approve of it or whether they like it, just whether or not it's socially acceptable. And I think that it's precisely the point. And now that that distinctive contribution of prediction markets is in this infrastructure, it can exist well beyond sports and well beyond just the young men that we kind of think of as the market for this kind of thing.
Starting point is 00:35:12 Yeah, I mean, this will be the little corner of the episode where producer Mike tells a story from the days of your, but like when I was the 90s, the 90s, the 80s. But when I was a kid, like, this level of gambling just like did not exist in the country, right? It was only like a very small number of places that you could gamble. I think it was pretty widely understood that gambling was morally corrosive and harmful to, society. And over the past couple decades, we have just really broken that down and broken that down and broken that down. And, you know, I think it's worthwhile to ask, well, like, who has been driving this societal change? It's getting a little further afield here. But, but boy, has it changed a lot in the past couple of decades. Yeah. And I think one of the unique harms of it targeting women
Starting point is 00:36:08 specifically is that plenty of people can gamble. It's not an advice that I particularly get down with, but plenty of people can gamble and it's not any kind of problem behavior in their life. They do it for fun. Whatever. I don't get it, but whatever. But it is a behavior that one can get out of control, which is like anything else, right? And so one of the specific reasons why it is so harmful to be targeting women specifically is that any kind of harm that impacts people, women are just understudied when it comes to the impacts of the harm. It's true when you look at a lot of medical things, you know, when you find out that something's only been tested on men or hasn't been tested on women, let alone trans folks, let alone non-binary folks, but like, you know, we are
Starting point is 00:36:51 less likely to have our unique issues be spotlighted and looked at, right? That's just like a norm about it, a way that it is to exist as a marginalized person in the world, right? So even as women are increasingly being targeted for gambling, women are still a lot less likely to be studied when it comes to things like problem gambling or gambling addiction. So those two things, it's incredibly dangerous for those two things to coexist, for women to be increasingly targeted for gambling and also pretty much understudied and underlooked at when it comes to the impacts or treatment, right? A 2026 systematic review focused on women in gambling disorder found that,
Starting point is 00:37:31 Dambling research and interventions remain heavily male-centered despite increasing female participation. Only 18 met its criteria for prevention or treatment research reporting female-specific outcomes. Wow, that is not a lot considering how many people are doing this and what's at stake. And there's also another gender asymmetry that's relevant here, which I think is the role that we, women play in supporting children and families. I mean, this is well documented in societies around the world that the financial well-being of women is so strongly connected to the well-being of children and families and economies in general.
Starting point is 00:38:20 Like, men are just more willing to do risky things with their money and the consequences of men spending money or going into debt, while not great in societies where there's just not a lot of money and wealth to go around. The impact on children in society at large is smaller than it is for women. And so that's just like one more reason why I think I am shocked at that low number of studies looking at women's gambling and treatment. And I would hope that there are researchers right now spinning up studies looking into this. And I dread. the results. Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned that. We have an entire episode with economists and researcher Anna Gifty about exactly that thing about how the health and wellness
Starting point is 00:39:09 economically of women, specifically black women is what she looks at, is linked to the health and wellness of families and communities and essentially the country writ large. And so if black women and women are not doing well economically, which right now we're not, that's actually problematic for the everybody, for all of us. Yeah, women and black women in particular, They are the safety net. You are the safety net. Put that on a shirt, Mike. Put that on a mug.
Starting point is 00:39:36 And so, yeah, I guess it's just that much more corrosive that we know less about gambling prevention and treatment specifically for women than we should. At the same time where women are being so uniquely targeted in this way. I just, it's a problem. Yeah. More after a quick break. The music you love. I heart radio.
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Starting point is 00:40:34 And I'm Martin. And we're the hosts of out of character. It's a podcast. I know there's a lot of them going around. But why should you listen to ours? Well, we're only the best podcast in the entire world. And we talk about pretty much everything under the sun. For example, music we're listening to, underground music, trending music,
Starting point is 00:40:52 drama in music worlds. Yes, sometimes we even talk about just everyday mundane situations in our lives, like the cool Uber driver we just had. Or the food we just say, that is surprisingly delicious. Or we'll talk about the Med Gala and the looks that they wore. Are they awesome? Are they trendy? Come find out. Because our opinion matters.
Starting point is 00:41:12 And so does yours. And this is a place where all of our minds can come together and connect. So what are you waiting for? Come connect with us. Listen out of character from Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Pods, or wherever you get your podcasts. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed.
Starting point is 00:41:31 And the argument is, do you want to, win. If you don't win, you have no power. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interest and they complain about the very thing to receive. It's raw. I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. Roland Martin unfiltered. I went off. I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Y'all going scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury. company in the same vein. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary
Starting point is 00:42:08 on the Black Information Network. Twelve seats. Those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030, you better be hitting the ground going hard in the South now. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts.
Starting point is 00:42:24 Or wherever you get your podcasts. The WNBA playoffs are about to begin. The talent is insane and the personalities are giving main character energy. And of course, the fans love it. But 30 years ago, when the league first started, it was a different story. I remember sitting with a couple of male writers all whining about, oh, what are they going to do if they break a nail? No one's going to show up. But from the very
Starting point is 00:42:49 beginning, there were two teams that captured everyone's attention. The comments were to real deal. I mean, come on. The Liberty never gave up. They never stopped fighting. I knew that rivalry was going to be amazing from the beginning. I'm Kerry Champion, and this is biggest rivalries of all time Season 2. The New York Liberty versus the Houston Comments, the very first rivalry of the WNBA. They picked us to finish
Starting point is 00:43:14 last and they picked them to finish first. That's all you need to know. I remember looking around thinking this is going to change things. Basketball was going to have this fundamental impact on the way people viewed women athletes. Listen to biggest rivalries of all time on
Starting point is 00:43:30 the I-Hard Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Is there bad blood between you in the comments as you guys meet again in the championship? Oh, we're coming back to win. Hey, what's up y'all? It's Questlove. And on the Questlove show, I've been sitting down with some really interesting people. And I've got two recent episodes you should check out. I caught up with my good friend Jojo to talk about her music, her career, and what she's been up to.
Starting point is 00:44:01 Don't invite me to karaoke. I'm going to make it weird. Someone's going to try to sing, leave get out, or too little, too late, or baby to you. and I'm going to be like, okay, cool. I also caught up with Wally-2-667 for a conversation that covered his story, his perspective, and plenty more. I don't even call it cheat day. That's a life day.
Starting point is 00:44:20 I'm not doing nothing. Don't try to be slick and just go Sunday. Go Wednesday. This what you do. Sleep later. Make a reservation for the rest of a round later. Just chill. Listen to the music you want to listen to.
Starting point is 00:44:31 Just enjoy it. It's going to be all right. Nothing's going to have you. You're going to wake up Wednesday. I'm like, ah. And you're going to feel better. And those are just two of the many recent episodes of the Questlove show. Listen to the Questlove show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast,
Starting point is 00:44:47 wherever you get your podcast. Peace. Let's get right back into it. Bringing it back to reality TV. My favorite topic. Bringing it back to reality TV. Something that is uniquely weird about betting on reality TV that is different from betting on sports is that somebody already knows what happened.
Starting point is 00:45:19 Producers, editors, contestants, network employees, publicists, post-production workers, maybe family members, contractors. So this is just my anecdotal question. I have no idea. But that's got to be a question about how all this works
Starting point is 00:45:35 and how all this is regulated. The LA Times raised concerns about this exact thing when it comes to reality TV prediction markets. And what's funny is that this has already kind of happened in a much higher stakes way than just reality TV show, than just like Love Island. Gabriel Perez, he was a longtime White House teleprompter operator who had access to Donald Trump's speeches before Trump delivered them publicly. Perez allegedly used that privileged information
Starting point is 00:46:07 to bet on cowshy markets about what words are phrases Trump would say in upcoming speeches. Now, I will say, I got to give it to Kalshi. The reason why we know this is because of Kalshi's internal systems, like they did a review, flagged and saw some suspicious behavior, and that's why we know this. But according to the CFTC, Perez made $107,539 and $2.2 in profits from those trades. The CFTC concluded that he was trading using material non-public information of paying through his White House job in breach of his duty of trust and confidence. So he ultimately was ordered to pay back $107,539 in profits and then pay an additional $65,000 in civil penalties, bringing in the
Starting point is 00:46:54 total that he had to pay to $172,539. He has also barred from trading on prediction markets for three years, which honestly, that sounds like a low amount of time for me. It does. And I just find this so interesting and like struggle to think about how to think about it because on the one hand, it does seem like the industry, and in this case, Kalshi, really is very interested in invested in doing a thorough job of policing and finding this kind of behavior. That's certainly the impression that they're giving, and I suspect that they probably are like truly doing that. However, that long list of people that you listed who have insider information that they could potentially use to cheat.
Starting point is 00:47:40 the system is just so many people. And so many people on that list, these are not like seven-figure jobs, right? Like, these are people who probably, many of whom probably have like an hourly wage, right? The incentive to use some of that information to make $20,000, $30,000 on a bet for somebody who's, you know, making $80,000 a year, it's just such a strong incentive. And there's so many people at that level, how could you possibly police them all? What's funny is that when you were outside grabbing a beer, producer Bree and I were talking about this, and she does, like, she has done, like, event management and, like, specifically teleprompter stuff. And she was like, I feel like they would right away know it was him.
Starting point is 00:48:25 Like, you know what I mean? Like, oh, who's betting on what's going to be on Trump's speeches? I feel like there's like a very small amount of people. And we were like, you know, what would have been a better thing if you were going to do this? Bet on the, like, White House, cage fight, like that kind of thing. Like, don't start with the thing where, okay, there's probably like a handful of people that could have been placing this bet and have this insider knowledge. But then there's so many of those kind of events where there's only a handful of people that I think the number pretty quickly gets pretty high.
Starting point is 00:48:52 What do you think about him being banned from prediction markets for three years? It doesn't seem like a very long time. That's only a handful of years, you know? What does it get whoever to just be like, you're banned for life? If you're one dude who can't do this and you lost your privileges forever, that's that. Like, three years seems like nothing to me. Yeah. There's like so much interesting stuff in that.
Starting point is 00:49:14 And that guy in particular, right, he was a White House employee. So he had like a federal duty, which it sounds like is why the CFTC was able to come after him, which is like such a wrinkle that also probably does not apply to most people who are in this condition. So what does that mean? Very good point. So that's kind of a. weird wrinkle to all of this. But again, when it comes specifically to betting on things like reality TV, I don't really understand it because, so we used the big example of Love Island.
Starting point is 00:49:45 Love Island was, you know, the Kalshi, their big foray into trying to target women this summer. And Love Island is a show where the American public is in some capacity meant to be impacting the outcome through votes. Big caveat. I have no idea how serious of an election. this is. You actually have a conspiracy theory that the votes don't matter at all. Yes, I do not think the votes matter at all. I think it's all production. I do know there are some like legal things where if they say it's a vote, they like legally have to try to be like it was a vote. I just don't believe it. I guess that's why it's a conspiracy theory. Yeah, maybe it's true. But we can move on for the sake of this discussion. We'll assume that it is a real vote. Yes, assuming that it's a real vote.
Starting point is 00:50:32 Yes, assuming that it's a real vote. Wink, wink, wink. I know. This is where Bridget takes the hard turn to like a stop the steel, like, voting or regularity truther. Yeah, like, how deep does this thing go? What was there on ramp to not believing the election results? Like, well, ever heard of a show called Love Island?
Starting point is 00:50:53 Are you familiar with Ariadamatics? Assuming that it's a real vote. And there's no funny business. That does produce this very weird. situation where someone can have money riding on the outcome and also be eligible to participate in voting in a way that could help shape the program. And again, I don't know. It's not like anything has been alleged, but a viewer interviewed by the LA Times specifically raised this concern in a piece about how prediction markets are showing up in reality TV and vice versa.
Starting point is 00:51:25 Yeah. It's a, I think a really reasonable concern, especially because of how easy it is for people to create like botnet accounts, for example. It wouldn't take a huge amount of imagination to imagine somebody developing a sophisticated apparatus using one of any number of cell phone farms located in Southeast Asia or Africa or wherever they're putting them now to really try to influence the election. Of course, maybe it wouldn't do anything for them since it's not real. Elections aren't real. Wait, someone's going to quit me saying that. It's a joke. There are certain phrases I will never say on the podcast because I'm so sure someone's going to like clip that and be like, oh, Bridget Todd says XYC.
Starting point is 00:52:09 Yeah, many of them related to Kanye. Yes. You know the thing I will never say on this podcast. Yeah. But seriously, though, it is just such an unusual and interesting situation where people who are able to influence the outcome are also betting. And I understand that that's against the rules. And there's been, but even so there's been like several pretty high profile cases of that that I looked into for this story. One, your friend in mind, George Santos. Ah, Santos, baby.
Starting point is 00:52:39 Tell me what he's up to. Still around. Just in the headlines last week, he had made multiple bets on Kalshi about whether he would attend the state of the union address. And at the same time that he was placing these bets, he was also posting online about whether he would or he wouldn't. in pretty classic like coy Santos way of like he knew exactly what he was doing in my opinion
Starting point is 00:53:04 and I guess also the opinion of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission their opinion matters their opinion matters more than mine here they said that he made over $14,000 through these actions of like making people think he would and then making them think he wouldn't
Starting point is 00:53:20 so he was fined by that commission he was banned and fined by Cal He had a whole cash settlement with the CTFC. Interestingly, in that case, which just happened a couple weeks ago, Kalshi said that they would reimburse traders who lost money by betting on the markets that he had manipulated, which I found interesting. It just happened a couple weeks ago, and I wasn't able to find any information confirming that they'd actually done that. So that might be an interesting thing for us to follow up on in a little while.
Starting point is 00:53:47 I love that the White House employee who misused his, like, you know, oath or whatever, duty to the American people by virtue of his job at the White House, three-year ban. George Santos, let's just get him out of here forever. So you're saying he got a forever ban? I'm not saying that. I don't know if it was a forever ban. I think it was a forever ban. Yeah, Kalshi was five days ago permanently banned for insider trading.
Starting point is 00:54:12 Okay, props to them because, honestly, you can't be trusting George Santos. I love that it's just like a moving forward. Let's just cut our losses. is our relationship ends here. Yeah. Like if you're looking for integrity and ethical behavior, he's not your guy. I wonder if like other prediction markets are like, you've never even been on our platform. Let's just ban you.
Starting point is 00:54:37 Like preemptively. Yeah. Preemptive ban. Yeah. So that was George Santos. I'm sure we'll be hearing more from him soon. There's also the case of Mark Moran, a former contestant on F-Boy Island. he ran for the Democratic nomination of U.S. Senate in Virginia. I vaguely remember hearing about him.
Starting point is 00:54:56 I think he did not make much of a splash. But he also bet that he would run after he had decided to run. And then he did run. And he won his bet before getting caught and fined for that. There was another candidate in North Carolina, Lori Buckhout. She bet on her own candidacy, you know, got caught. Interestingly, she said that she, hadn't done anything wrong because she bet on herself to win.
Starting point is 00:55:21 Oh, the Pete Rose defense. The Pete Rose defense, right. And you know, I do think there might be some moral ambiguity at least for Pete Rose. I don't know about Lori Buckout. But Kalsh did not see it that way, fined and suspended her. And there have been other politicians as well. There's also a video editor for Mr. Beast who made over $5,000 betting on unlikely things that Mr. Beast might say.
Starting point is 00:55:46 I think much like Trump's teleprompter guy, like. He just had special access to what was going to come up in the videos. And so he'd been on it and Kulshi investigated and found that he had near perfect trading success. Right. And I think, you know, that's another example where these cheats are not acting in very sophisticated ways, right? Like if you're really going to try to cheat the system, maybe you might string a couple losses in there. It's like when I would change my grades and when I was in high school, look at my report card, I was like notorious of my family. for changing my grades.
Starting point is 00:56:20 And I'd be like, don't give yourself all A's. You know what I mean? Like, no one's going to buy that. Throw a couple C's in there. Kids don't change your grade. Yeah, don't just get good grades. But if you're going to change your grades, at least, like, make it believable. Like, throw on a couple Cs.
Starting point is 00:56:35 Yeah. That's fair enough. And like you said, I think it's only fair to point out that we know about these cases because of people got caught, fined, and had their accounts suspended. So it's clear that the industry knows that this particular thing is a problem where people can be influencing the bets that they make. And it seems like the industry really wants to send the message that they're cracking down on this. The comprehensiveness to which they are catching all of these, it's a big question, you know, I don't know, remains to be seen.
Starting point is 00:57:04 But then there are also some examples of what I would call even higher stakes than these. You know, like one of the nice things about George Santos is he just keeps giving the stakes are always low enough that you can just kind of move on. There's a story of Israeli journalist Emmanuel Fabin. Washington Post reporter Garrett DeVink reported on this story where Fabian, he was a journalist, reporting from Israel. Polymarket had a market on whether an Iranian missile was going to hit Israel on a particular day. So we're talking like war. We're talking about missiles hitting places where people live. Very serious stuff.
Starting point is 00:57:41 There were millions of dollars writing on the answer, which already were in some pretty more. gray to bad area. But that was the situation. Fabian reported that a missile had struck an open area near Jerusalem. You know, he's a reporter. He's reporting what happened in this war. Because his reporting would potentially determine how that polymarket contract would get resolved, there were people with large amounts of money at stake pressuring him to change
Starting point is 00:58:12 his reporting. Wow. He received death threats and one person reportedly offered him a, cut of their winnings if he changed the report, right? So he's a reporter. He saw that a missile hit the territory. He reported on that. And here was somebody trying to get him to change that just so they could win a bet, right? And this example really sticks out to me because not only were people with financial stakes trying to affect the outcomes of these bets, they were trying to pressure a journalist in a war zone to distort his reporting on what was happening.
Starting point is 00:58:44 We depend on journalism to keep us informed about what's happening in the world outside of what we can immediately see out beyond our front door. But here the prediction market was attempting to bend reality by altering that reporting in order to maximize the winnings of some people. And it just seems fascinating and particularly perverse there. Yeah. And I think it really clarifies the stakes. Again, it's one thing when we're talking about Love Island. It's quite another when we're talking about a journalist being pressured to change reporting on something like war. I should say, as a cover your ass thing, Kalshi says that it will not list markets on war, assassination, or violence.
Starting point is 00:59:33 Its newer risk review system also specifically considers whether a seemingly ordinary market could be connected to a military action or physical violence. So that's from Kalshi. That's what they say about their markets and what they say that they disallow. My sense is that they are invested in making themselves distinct in that way. That's my sense. Yeah, I get that sense as well. And so in that case, there is a journalist reporting on war, getting pressured to change his reporting and make us all blinder to what was actually happening.
Starting point is 01:00:11 But then there are other cases where there are suspicions of the people potentially involved in the decisions about military actions and war, right? So there are multiple cases where suspicions have been raised that somebody with access to insider information in the Trump administration's military plans use that information to make and win bets, right? And there are two in particular. Again, these are no particular individuals have been alleged to have done this, but like, there are suspicions. So before the U.S. started bombing Iran in February, six brand new polymarket accounts made about just a little over a million dollars, including one account whose first ever trade came just 71 minutes before the attack became public. So that's pretty suspicious. And then before that, before the capture of Venezuela's president Nicholas Maduro, another account reportedly bet $38,500 and turned that into almost $500,000, placing some major trades in the hours before that covert operation became public. That seems really coincidental.
Starting point is 01:01:23 Like, what a lucky person, right? Right? Yeah. What luck. Somebody just like woke up one day and said like, hey, I'm going to create. an account and bet a large amount of money on this totally random thing that I do not have any insider information about. Hey, look at that.
Starting point is 01:01:41 I won half a million dollars. It seems suspicious. Now, I mean, do we really think that somebody in the Trump administration would ever do something unethical to enrich themselves? I mean, do you think? I don't know. I mean, that would be news. In any other administration, somebody will be on this, we would have answers.
Starting point is 01:02:05 It would be something, but like, it's funny how in this administration is like, what are you going to do is, we can't, we can't get them all. Yeah. We can't get them all. You're like, and actually it's good. You know, he's a job creator. Yeah, so hopefully someday we'll get some more information about those suspicious trades because it does seem like particularly egregious, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Starting point is 01:02:28 And it kind of leads to the next thing I want to talk about, which is where are we at regulatory-wise, because when you tell me things like this, it becomes very easy for me to say, well, this is just simply an unregulated space, even though, as I mentioned before, that's not totally true. But when people say that, I don't feel like it's wrong, really either, because of what you just, like, it's hard, it's hard to believe this is a regulated space when you tell me things like that. More after a quick break. This record is on. Miley is having a moment.
Starting point is 01:03:06 New name, new house. Closive shows. So IHard Radio is sending you to experience it all. Life at the Hollywood Ports, hotel, tickets, and $1,000 cash. Listen to IHard new music for 10 minutes a day on the IHart Radio app. And click enter. Every day you listen is another chance to win. Stream Miley's new album, Bass Persuades, today.
Starting point is 01:03:34 I'm Hamza. And I'm Martin. And we're the hosts of Out of Character. It's a podcast. I know. There's a lot of them to listen to these days. How are you going to get to us? Well, there's a specific reason why you should listen to us. We are the best podcast in the entire world. I swear. I know, bold. But why don't we list some of the things we might talk about on a regular episode? So sometimes we'll talk about, I don't know, the Uber driver we just had.
Starting point is 01:03:57 And how nice they were, or if we tipped them or not, come and find out. Sometimes we'll talk about that weird news story from last week. It's the one you're thinking about. Trust me. Or maybe we'll talk about music and what's happening in the underground or drama and music or TV shows or the Met Gala and what the actors wore. What we're saying is we're not afraid to talk about everything under the sun. And if you want to see what that's like, come join us. It's a place where everyone can hang out, anyone. Wherever you're from, whatever you're like, you're welcome.
Starting point is 01:04:28 Listen out of character from Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeart radio app, Apple Pods, or wherever you get your podcasts. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. And the argument is, do you want to win? If you don't win, you have no power. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interests and they complain about the very thing to receive.
Starting point is 01:04:54 It's raw. I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. Roland Martin Unfiltered I went off, I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Y'all going to scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same vein. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. Twelve seats, those are moving south.
Starting point is 01:05:21 So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030, you better be hitting the ground going hard in the South now. And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. The WNBA playoffs are about to begin. The talent is insane and the personalities are giving main character energy. And of course, the fans love it.
Starting point is 01:05:45 But 30 years ago, when the league first started, it was a different story. I remember sitting with a couple of male writers all whining about, oh, what are they going to do if they break a nail? No one's going to show up. But from the very beginning, there were two teams that captured everyone's attention.
Starting point is 01:06:01 The comments were to real deal. I mean, come on. The Liberty never gave up. They never stopped fighting. I knew that rivalry was going to be amazing from the beginning. I'm Kerry Champion, and this is biggest rivalries of all time, season two. The New York Liberty versus the Houston Commons, the very first rivalry of the WNBA. They picked us to finish last, and they picked them to finish first.
Starting point is 01:06:24 That's all you need to know. I remember looking around thinking, this is going to change things. basketball was going to have this fundamental impact on the way people viewed women athletes. Listen to biggest rivalries of all time on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Is there bad blood between you in the comments as you guys meet again in the championship? Oh, we're coming back to win. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's Questlove. And on the Questlove show, I've been sitting down with some really interesting people. and I've got two recent episodes you should check out.
Starting point is 01:07:04 I caught up with my good friend Jojo to talk about her music, her career, and what she's been up to. Don't invite me to karaoke. I'm going to make it weird. Someone's going to try to sing, leave get out, or too little, too late, or baby to you. Oh, no.
Starting point is 01:07:16 And I'm going to be like, okay, cool. I also caught up with Wally-O-267 for a conversation that covered his story, his perspective, and plenty more. I don't even call it cheat day. That's a life day. I'm not doing nothing. Don't try to be slick and just go Sunday.
Starting point is 01:07:31 Go Wednesday. This is what you do. Sleep later. Make a reservation for the rest of the night later. Just chill. Listen to the music you want to listen to. Just enjoy it. It's going to be all right.
Starting point is 01:07:41 Nothing's going to have you. Wake up Wednesday. I'm like, ah, and you're going to feel better. And those are just two of the many recent episodes of the Questlove show. Listen to the Questlove show on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Peace. Let's get right back into it. I did want to talk about sort of where we are regulatory-wise because those examples seem so egregious.
Starting point is 01:08:17 We must know more about how they have been allowed, right? Yeah, it's like perhaps it is a regulated space, but is it a regulated space? Yes, exactly that. So right now, the courts are basically fighting over whether or not all of this is just gambling. That's sort of like where we're starting with all of this regulation-wise. And the basic legal question is actually pretty simple. If somebody puts money on whether a sports team wins, does calling that transaction an event contract transform it from typical traditional sports betting
Starting point is 01:08:55 into a federally regulated derivatives product? It sounds absurd when you say it like that. But yeah, I guess that's the question. Does changing what you call a thing magically transform it into a different thing? I mean, I know we're talking. trying to wrap up, and I promise I won't go on the whole thing. But that is so the like tech landscape of 2026 of, well, it's this. Like, oh, I have employees, but what if I call them contractors? What would that get me? You know what I mean? Or like, oh, well, this app connects people
Starting point is 01:09:28 with medical providers, but it's an app. We're a tech company. We're not a medical company, so we should not have to follow medical rules because we call ourselves a tech company. I'm a medical company. You know what I mean? It's like like that, like that. If there's one promise of tech in 26 is that is what if we call a thing that we all understand a different name, does that make it a different thing legally? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. That's that's literally the game, it seems. So Kowshi argues that because it is a CFTC regulated designated contract market under federal commodities law, states generally cannot force it to obtain conventional game. gambling licenses for those contracts. That's what's Kalshi's position. Then the states, they argue that
Starting point is 01:10:15 sports wagers are in fact gambling and that they should remain subject to their traditional gaming authority because if you go to a casino in Maryland, it is heavily regulated by the state. It is a heavily regulated activity. And so the state's involved. And so basically the question is whether the courts agree with Kauci that this is a different thing does not need to be regulated by the states or the states, which is like, this is game. gambling and we should be regulating it. Right. And I just want to underscore that analogy you made that like, say you want to bet on the Ravens versus
Starting point is 01:10:45 commanders game, right? You could walk into a casino in Maryland and place that bet that the Ravens are going to win and it's regulated as gambling. You could open your phone while inside the casino, place that bet online and it's not gambling. Make it make sense. Couchy would say it's not gambling. This is a CFTC regulator. They did a contract market.
Starting point is 01:11:10 Yeah. Totally different thing. So like if the casino starts having you like sign a contract when you walk in, does that make it not gambling? Great question. Great question. I'm sure their lawyers are working on it. I do think it matters to the gender angle of all this.
Starting point is 01:11:27 It's sort of where these two halves kind of connect. So imagine if you are someone who is like looking from the outside at a betting app like this. And you're asking, you know, you from the outside, you see, will XYZ couple win Love Island? Culturally, you might experience that as gambling, as betting, as the traditional thing of putting money on the odds of whether or not something happens. But under Kowshey's legal theory, that woman is not using a state regulated gambling theory. Instead, she is purchasing a federally regulated event contract on a derivatives exchange. Sure. as you do. Yeah, as, as, you know how the girls are always doing that these days. So it sounds super
Starting point is 01:12:12 wonky, but it is important. That distinction potentially affects which regulator has authority, state gambling licenses, minimum age rules, responsible gambling requirements, consumer protections, taxation, and what markets can legally be offered. So this kind of pedantic sounding bite over whether we call this trading or gambling is not just semantics. There could be billions of dollars, not to mention the sort of dambling experiences of millions of people riding on that one single distinction. And again, people like me, I've definitely said that these spaces are totally unregulated and it's not completely true. Kaushi is not simply operating without government oversight. The CFTC regulates federally designated contract markets. And in February,
Starting point is 01:12:57 the agency specifically warned prediction market participants that federal commodity rules against fraud and misuse of non-public information apply to events contracts. So there is some regulation. That said, states argue that this federal oversight is not a meaningful substitute for the gambling specific regulatory systems that they have built that we're all pretty familiar with in the states, if your state allows gambling. So the dispute is not kind of regulation versus no regulation. It's more financial market regulation versus what we understand as like gambling regulations. that have been around for decades and whether they both can apply. It's kind of an interesting, like I know it's a little bit wonky, but it's kind of an
Starting point is 01:13:40 interesting designation and fight. It is, yeah. And I think it can quickly get very boring. But the topic of how are these things regulated, just in general, how are industries regulated products when they have profound influence over our lives, I think is an important thing. And yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it gets resolved. Everything I just told you about, here's why I think it's happening. It's not because prediction markets, polymarket, calci, give a shit about women, give a shit about empowerment,
Starting point is 01:14:17 care about me as a woman in my particular struggles and how I feel about Love Island or whatever the fuck. No. The reason why I believe these platforms are trying to expand beyond sports and into reality TV and other cultural events, beyond this wanting more market capture, is because still, right now, the main thing on these platforms, despite all of this, is still sports. That is still happening.
Starting point is 01:14:41 The Atlantic reported that over one six-month period, 88% of Cali-Therting was sports. That's based on analysis from the investment firm paradigm. Crypto was a distant second. So if the main thing that people are trading on is sports, it starts to look a lot like a traditional sports book. You get what I'm saying? If almost everything people actually trade on on prediction markets is sports, state regulators have a much easier argument but saying, oh, this is just good old fashioned traditional sports betting.
Starting point is 01:15:14 With a more diversified platform, with markets around Love Island, politics, entertainment, culture, reality TV, that better supports the argument that prediction markets constitute an entirely new type of information. media financial marketplace. So that's what I think, you know, other than just the good old fashioned, wanting more of the market, wanting more women, more audience, yada, yada, yada, yes, that.
Starting point is 01:15:41 I also think they need to have this new cultural, kind of like soft women's media stuff on there to legally distinguish them from being traditional sports book gambling that we all are familiar with. You get what I'm saying? I do. That is such an interesting angle
Starting point is 01:15:59 that I had not. even thought about. Yes. Thank you for connecting those dots. Huh. So they don't just want your money. They also want you as like a shield to protect them from regulatory oversight. Bingo.
Starting point is 01:16:16 And this is where I must say, thanks to Engineer Bree, I have a camera that I can look directly in to address you, women listening at home, which I never get to do in my kitchen, but I get to do today here in Bahamas. Women. I need to be so clear. We are not falling for the rebrand of prediction markets. We are too smart for that. Let's keep it that way. They did not just invent some cute new way for you to monetize how much you know about Love Island. They are trying to take gambling, put in a cute outfit, give it a matcha, and put it on your TikTok page because they want your money.
Starting point is 01:16:57 because they want your attention, your eyeballs, and because they want you and your interest in this platform to legally designate them from traditional gambling. For years, the gambling industry has been very, very, very successful at getting men to turn watching sports into an opportunity to lose their money. That's them. That's not us. But now there is an enormous population of women who do not think of themselves, as gamblers because suddenly it's not betting. Oh, you're trading. You're monetizing your experience. You're girl bossing because you know who's getting dumped first from the villa. Maybe it makes you 10 bucks and that means your iced coffee was basically free. No. Girl math is bullshit. Your coffee was not free. You gambled $10 and happened to win once. And again, I find the language of empowerment.
Starting point is 01:17:57 so deeply insulting. Women spent generations fighting to have our expertise taken seriously to control our own money, to participate fully in financial life. And now somebody has figured out a way to try and take the language of financial independence and use it to sell us on a wager of whether or not Taylor Swift drops an album or gets engaged. I say, no, you will not. Not today, Satan, not ever. You do not need to monetize every opinion that you have.
Starting point is 01:18:31 You do not need financial exposure to your favorite TV show. You are allowed to know exactly what's going to happen on Love Island and receive absolutely nothing for that other than the privilege of being probably kind of annoying in the group chat. And remember why they are suddenly talking to us this way. Women did not just suddenly discover that gambling could be feminist. These companies looked at a customer base that was disproportionately male and saw billions of dollars of profit and power still sitting on the table. That's us. That's you. They want your money and they want you to normalize this shit. Worse, they think that you are stupid enough to pay them for you to do that work for them for free.
Starting point is 01:19:21 So when an industry that has spent years perfecting ways to separate people from their money suddenly shows up in your feed speaking fluent cultural kind of girly pop language, do not mistake being targeted for being empowered. They did not make gambling for women. They just made gambling that looks and feels like it is not gambling. Do not fucking fall for it. That's it. That's all I have. Damn, we're going to have to get a camera so that you can speak directly to camera more often. I'm going to start doing, you remember when you would stay home sick and watch Jerry Springer
Starting point is 01:19:58 and it would be Jerry's final thought where he would like, he would have people on stage like punching each other and then he would look at the camera and be like, let's be kind to ourselves and each other's friends. I'm going to start doing his final thought. Well, engineer Bree has taken such good care of us here at Bahamas. Again, I'm quite picky about my podcast setup, and I could not have asked for a more professional setup and engineer. Thank you, producer, Bree. Yeah, thank you, producer, Bree. And thank you, Bahamara, for having us.
Starting point is 01:20:29 This is such a cool studio. It's really just great to be in a professional space like this and know that we have such a beautiful spot outside to get back out to. Now that we're done recording. So let's do that, B. Any final, final thoughts? Take care of yourselves and each other. All right, let's hit the water park. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?
Starting point is 01:20:58 You can reach us at hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangooty.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contribution. contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Dodd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.
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