Bobby Allyn
@bobbyallyn.bsky.social
Correspondent at @NPR covering tech. Now focusing on prediction markets. Signal: ballyn.77 Discord: bobby16663 Email: ballyn@npr.org
Trump’s media company today began selling early access to the president’s posts on Truth Social for up to $100k a month to financial institutions. I talked to former SEC lawyers, who see the service as a violation of insider trading laws. And a Wall Street executive, who told me:
Example of a prediction market paying out for unreality: A live announcer mistook Matt Damon for Brad Pitt during the World Cup final, some outlets erroneously reported it, and a Kalshi attendance market resolved yes he attended, when he in fact was not there. Here’s why this happened:
Kalshi's standoff with Wisconsin over election betting could be a preview of the next big prediction market fight. Election integrity experts fear situations like an election poll worker slowing the count or undercounting in order to cash in on a prediction market bet. www.npr.org/2026/07/27/n...
Kalshi attacks a Wisconsin law banning election bets as 'voter suppression'
The spat between the leading prediction market company and a key battleground state could be a glimpse into the next major fight between states and the fast-growing industry.
npr.org
Wisconsin Elections Commission warning voters about using Kalshi and Polymarket ahead of midterms: “Voters who place bets on elections and then try to vote in that election may be subject to voter qualification … and could also result in a referral to the District Attorney”
This was a really great discussion, give it a listen!
Bobby Allyn@bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 2w agoHad fun hopping on @chrislhayes.bsky.social’s great podcast Why Is This Happening to chat prediction market mania, how we got here and where all this crazy-making madness is heading open.spotify.com/episode/3mKo...
Had fun hopping on @chrislhayes.bsky.social’s great podcast Why Is This Happening to chat prediction market mania, how we got here and where all this crazy-making madness is heading open.spotify.com/episode/3mKo...
The Betting Craze with Bobby Allyn
Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast · Episode
open.spotify.com
NEW from me: Kalshi says it’s not a sports gambling app. Since the World Cup started, it’s taken in $40 billion in sports bets, 10 times more than what DraftKings and FanDuel are expected to see. www.npr.org/2026/07/17/n...
Kalshi says it's not a sportsbook even as World Cup bets surge
The betting site Kalshi emerged as a dominant sports betting platform during the World Cup. But the company avoids billions of dollars in taxes by insisting it is not a sports gambling operator.
npr.org
White House teleprompter operator as Kalshi Mention Market sharp is a designation as 2026 as they come www.npr.org/2026/07/16/n...
Federal officials probe whether White House teleprompter profited off Trump's words
It's the first known instance of officials investigating suspected insider trading on a prediction market from inside the White House.
npr.org
NEW: Rep. Krishnamoorthi sent a letter to Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan today requesting information about its paid influencer partnerships where election denialism was amplified. krishnamoorthi.house.gov/sites/evo-su...
krishnamoorthi.house.gov
nothing says just how destigmatized and normalized gambling has become like this stat: American adults are more likely to place a bet than read a book
Meanwhile on Kalshi, traders made $879k betting Platner would drop out today and lost $907k betting he wouldn’t, according to internal market data. That’s just for today. The market overall had $11.5M traded on the question of when Platner would withdraw from the race.
Matt Levine: Prediction markets are “falsehood machines, in the sense that they give people incentives to make bets and then distort reality to make those bets pay off...Prediction markets can make it harder to know what is true.” www.bloomberg.com/opinion/news...
Purchasing bots to juice Spotify streams for a Kalshi payout on what song will be No. 1 “Spotify ultimately adjusted its charts to account for the discrepancy, culling over 500,000 artificial streams…The process was not immediate, though, and Kalshi had already resolved the market to award traders”
Kate Knibbs@knibbs.bsky.social · last mo.NEW: Spotify charts are getting botted, and a top Kalshi trader is convinced it's part of a market manipulation scheme: www.wired.com/story/spotif...
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg met with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour about a possible takeover last year, before directing Meta employees to build a prediction market app (Bobby Allyn/NPR) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
NEW: Meta considered buying Kalshi before developing its own prediction market app www.npr.org/2026/06/30/n...
Meta considered buying Kalshi before developing its own prediction market app
Mark Zuckerberg met with Kalshi's CEO last year about a potential deal, but talks did not move forward. Now Meta is making its own prediction market app.
npr.org
The Rick Rubin Polymarket ad ends with fine print: “Trading is not available in all jurisdictions. Check local regulations before trading.” (Checks local regulations) Ah yes, trading on Polymarket dot com has been banned in the US since 2022, got it
Musk says not a single person has died due to him axing USAID. Sadly, part of my job involves tracking aid spending. So here’s a thread with just some of the people who lost their lives because of USAID cuts
Meta is planning its very own prediction market app, as @mikeisaac.bsky.social scooped yesterday I got some internal Meta docs that give more detail on the app and how it plans to use ai from market creation to how markets resolve, etc., all while wagering "play money" www.npr.org/2026/06/24/n...
Meta plans to release AI-powered prediction market app, documents show
The company is building an app separate from Facebook and Instagram where people can wager on the outcome of real-world events, using "play money."
npr.org
I’ve seen internal Meta docs that have used the codename “Antwerp” to describe this product, in addition to Arena. It’s being described as a rebuild of its 2020 prediction app experiment.
rat king 🐀 👑 @mikeisaac.bsky.social · last mo.News: Meta is currently building a prediction markets app to rival Polymarket and Kalshi, according to sources the app, currently called "Arena," will be a standalone offering and was ordered up by Mark Zuckerberg www.nytimes.com/2026/06/23/t...
Spencer Pratt was part of this very online feedback loop where he kept going viral on X, his odds were always bullish on prediction markets and traders were obsessed with him, so I got access to Kalshi API data and ran the numbers.
Polymarket & Kalshi are both now cracking down on paid partnership posts that use betting odds to allege election fraud, after a surge of unsubstantiated claims about the LA mayoral race circulated on X, @bobbyallyn.bsky.social and @jjoffeblock.bsky.social report www.npr.org/2026/06/07/n...
Kalshi and Polymarket crack down on paid influencers claiming election fraud
Influencers are using prediction market odds to sow doubt in vote counting, in some cases in posts paid for by the companies themselves.
npr.org
NEW with @jjoffeblock.bsky.social: An inside look at Kalshi and Polymarket's crack down on paid influencers claiming election fraud in California. www.npr.org/2026/06/07/n...
Kalshi and Polymarket crack down on paid influencers claiming election fraud
Influencers are using prediction market odds to sow doubt in vote counting, in some cases in posts paid for by the companies themselves.
npr.org
George Santos called me after my story revealing federal investigations into his suspected market manipulation on Kalshi. And he said: "This story is going to get you a gun in your face." Then he lied about it. www.npr.org/2026/06/04/n...
I wrote about George Santos. Then he made a violent threat and lied about it
NPR reported on new federal investigations examining the former Congressman's bets on the prediction market site Kalshi. Then he threatened the NPR reporter who broke the story.
npr.org
"i'm not saying yes, i'm not saying no" is just an iconic thing to tell a reporter. nice scoop @bobbyallyn.bsky.social www.npr.org/2026/06/02/n...
a you-can't-make-it-up @bobbyallyn.bsky.social scoop: George Santos told X followers he was going to the State of the Union. Then he didn't show - and placed bets on Kalshi that netted him tens of thousands of dollars. Now he's under federal investigation by DOJ and CFTC www.npr.org/2026/06/02/n...
DOJ is investigating former congressman George Santos for insider trading on Kalshi
The disgraced former congressman allegedly bet on whether he would appear at the State of the Union address, prompting federal investigations.
npr.org
NEW: DOJ is investigating former congressman George Santos for insider trading on Kalshi www.npr.org/2026/06/02/n...
DOJ is investigating former congressman George Santos for insider trading on Kalshi
The disgraced former congressman allegedly bet on whether he would appear at the State of the Union address, prompting federal investigations.
npr.org
The right-wing media ecosystem is boosting Spencer Pratt but can he win the LA mayor’s race? Steve Bannon told me yes, calling him “the most Trumpian candidate we’ve ever seen” "Tell him I would endorse him, but I don't want to hurt his chances of winning in LA” www.npr.org/2026/05/21/n...
Spencer Pratt is 'winning the internet,' but can he become mayor of Los Angeles?
Pratt, a former reality TV star, is flooding social media with edgy humor, AI slop and combative rhetoric as a way of grabbing attention and winning the vote of the very online. It's a strategy some p...
npr.org
Google's vision for the future of search is that you don't even really go to websites anymore, ai agents do it for you. (other than wired dot com which you will of course continue to visit obsessively, thank you, please) from @thiccreese.bsky.social
Google Search Goes Agentic—and Doesn’t Need You Anymore
Vibe-coded results! Super widgets! Bots that never sleep! Google’s vision for the future of Search is hyper-personalized, automated, and extremely AI.
wired.com
