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is a news writer covering all things consumer tech. Stevie started out at Laptop Mag writing news and reviews on hardware, gaming, and AI.
Kalshi is facing backlash from its own users after a class action lawsuit was filed last week alleging it failed to pay out as promised for wagers regarding when Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would leave or be removed from office. Khamenei was killed in strikes on Iran last month, but according to the lawsuit, Kalshi didn’t implement a “death carveout” until after Khamenei had died.
Meanwhile, Kalshi is reportedly working to attract more women to its platform in an effort to grow its user base. As the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, the percentage of women using Kalshi has doubled over the past ten months, growing from 13 percent to 26 percent of Kalshi’s total users. According to Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara, that shift involves “catering to [women’s] interests and expertise in ways that traditional financial markets haven’t.”
Here are some other headlines from the past week in news about Polymarket, Kalshi, and prediction markets:
- Competition between Kalshi and Polymarket goes all the way up to the platforms’ CEOs, Tarek Mansour and Shayne Coplan, respectively. According to NPR, Mansour is avoiding even saying the word “Polymarket” publicly. The two companies are also competing for the trademarked title of “world’s largest prediction market.”
- Kalshi and Polymarket have both launched event contracts allowing users to bet on stocks and indexes on the S&P 500.
- Sports betting is gaining popularity on college campuses, with some students burning so much money they lie to family members, ghost their friends, or fall behind in their classes.
- Sports betting platform DraftKings announced during a virtual investor day last week that it’s planning to launch a new super app called “DraftKings Sports & Casino” that will offer prediction markets, in a bid to compete with Kalshi and Polymarket.
- Churchill Downs Incorporated, which owns the racetrack that’s home to the Kentucky Derby, is pushing back against prediction markets, with CDI CEO Bill Carstanjen saying “you need our express consent” to place wagers on horse races across any platform. According to the 1978 Interstate Horseracing Act, off-track wagers, which could include those on prediction markets, require prior consent from the host racing association, host racing commission, and off-track racing commission.
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