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Kalshi And Polymarket Raise Red Flags About TV Spoilers
Image courtesy of CBS // Illustration by Kate Walker
Conspicuous trades on prediction markets are spoiling top pre-filmed reality shows… and raising serious concerns about insider trading.
The Big Picture: Pre-taped reality shows like Survivor and The Bachelor rely on secrecy among cast and crew. While there have always been leakers sharing spoilers with sources on Reddit and other forums and blogs, the eye-popping sums tied to prediction platforms are becoming impossible to ignore… and could change how audiences experience the shows.
Behind The Scenes: Some suspicious activity is going down on Kalshi and Polymarket.
Traders gave eventual Survivor 50 winner Aubry Bracco a 61% chance of winning six weeks before the show even aired. A month later, her odds climbed to 83%. By the finale, $32.7 million had been bet on her becoming Sole Survivor.
A similar thing happened during the last season of The Masked Singer, when Kalshi traders gave contestant Galaxy Girl — later revealed to be Ashlee Simpson — a 91% chance of winning… three months before the finale.
And before Season 22 of The Bachelorette was indefinitely postponed, Polymarket traders gave contestant Doug Mason an 89.5% chance of getting the rose from Taylor Frankie Paul, while Kalshi traders put the odds at 93%.
Final Bet: The clear insider-trading issue is causing stress across the reality-TV industry, and frustration has reached a new high with Survivor. Contestants on the show didn’t even know the winner themselves, instead waiting like the rest of the audience for host Jeff Probst to read the vote tallies during the live finale. So, when spoilers get out, it means someone inside the production team is likely to blame… which Probst is none too happy about.
Kalshi and Polymarket both ban insider trading and have investigated the spoiler issues… but maintain that no one has been found guilty. The platforms claim traders are simply acting on rumors circulating online. Still, studios aren’t thrilled about prediction markets sending push notifications highlighting potential spoilers… or the headlines those alerts generate.
Prediction: It’s unlikely prediction markets will look to cut deals with reality-TV companies, so expect more competitions to be filmed entirely live in an effort to avoid leaks.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.