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is the Verge’s weekend editor. He has over 18 years of experience, including 10 years as managing editor at Engadget.
Polymarket bets started popping up in Google News alongside legitimate news articles. But now those results aren’t showing, and Google says they were never supposed to. Spokesperson Ned Adriance told The Verge that “Google News is designed to show sources that create content about current issues, events, and important topics, and we have policies for sites to be eligible to appear. This site briefly appeared in Google News in error, and it is no longer surfacing in News.”
The links led directly to betting markets tied to specific news events. For instance, before the results were removed, Futurism searched “will ships transit the strait,” (the Strait of Hormuz), and just below credible sources like The Guardian and Reuters was a Polymarket bet on the specific number of ships that would be allowed to pass.
Initially, there was speculation that Google might be testing Polymarket results as part of an integration with the service. Polymarket and Kalshi have been aggressively pursuing partnerships with journalists and news outlets, even less reputable ones. It’s unclear how Polymarket ended up in Google News results, or when exactly it started. Though reports popped up on social media as early as January.
Google has already partnered with both Kalshi and Polymarket to bring their data to Google Finance. Whether that deal and the results in Google News are related in any way is unclear. We’ve reached out to Google for additional information.
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