New York Times and The Athletic workers demand company scrap Kalshi deal

mikeryan

I really don’t understand how these markets survive a competent DOJ considering the rate they’re having to ban people for “insider trading”. Fully appreciate the Unions position here.

burkaman

This is about stopping a potential deal ( https://frontofficesports.com/article/the-athletic-serious-t... ), nothing finalized yet. They have allegedly abandoned the idea and claim that isn't because of the union demands: https://frontofficesports.com/article/new-york-times-union-k... .

The_Blade

what happened with Bill Simmons bragging about using his daughter's boyfriend to place proxy bets for him on FanDuel (who Bill is partnered with) is endlessly entertaining Trump Jr. just pumped 300 million into Polymarket and also has a stake in Kalshi so, i'm not sure who thinks the DOJ will really do anything. this is fentanyl on the phone but there will have to be a few examples like some low-levels House members or state senators alongside sports casualites

cm2012

Sports gambling is a cancer for every sports institution and this protest is a step in the right direction.

tlogan

The only thing I know is that journalism stopped being independent and unbiased a long, long time ago.

basisword

I find it really interesting that online sports betting, which has been a thing in my country for 15+ years and largely a non-issue, is suddenly a total shitshow once it gets legalised in the US. I feel like the US always takes things too far. I watch quite a few US sports and former athletes giving betting suggestions during broadcasts is absolutely insane. How can you go from being so restrictive to having absolutely no limits overnight? To make matters worse I get the feeling the TV companies here are taking pointers from their US colleagues and starting to force us down the same path.

mag7269

Got really confused as why my granola bar company was signing a deal with the NYT and The Athletic, and why this was deemed so controversial, then I used Google and learned the difference between Kashi and Kalshi.

cdrnsf

Sports gambling is a cancer, as are prediction markets. None of it should've been legalized and all of it should be banned.

woah

Unfortunately, this shows how much facts and reality have been turned into nothing more than a loyalty test by both sides of our political debate. > A partnership between The Times (for The Athletic) and Kalshi would also provide validation that their prediction market data should be taken seriously as an indicator of the future. Facts prove otherwise. They could have objected to the partnership on any number of valid grounds, like the fact that predicting the outcome of sporting events provides no valid benefit and can only ever be gambling, or that the integration is probably going to be pretty lame and provide no benefit to the reader. Instead, they felt compelled to make a trivially false claim, the claim that prediction markets do not accurately predict the future. It's trivial to prove that this claim is false, because if it were true, it would be very easy for anyone to make a huge amount of money on prediction markets. It's even more telling why they made this claim, to avoid "providing validation". Not because of any harms caused by sports gambling addiction, but because it could provide a tiny piece of political ammunition to a product that has been slotted into the opposing political tribe. Reading this statement, one gets the impression that they would be completely OK with sports gambling on The Athletic, as long as it was provided by a more traditional casino-style bookie operation. I'm guessing that anyone in the room when this statement was written who even brought up the question of the facts could be safely sidelined and ostracized by the union as being insufficiently loyal to their political position.

astura

Someone tampered with the weather equipment at Charles de Gaulle airport for a Polymarket bet. This sort of thing is going to become so much more common going forward. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/hairdryer-or-l... On another note, I had no idea the athletic was owned by NY Times.

tantalor

The linked article is pretty interesting: > found a pattern of [Polymarket] sharing false and misleading information https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/technology/polymarket-soc... They don't have much to say about Kalshi other than "unlike real mainstream journalism, there’s no accountability". Which isn't saying much, because nobody is claiming prediction markets are a type of journalism.

criddell

CNN also has a Kalshi deal. https://news.kalshi.com/p/kalshi-cnn-prediction-market-partn...

imagetic

Agreed. They should not be tied or linked or it.

caycep

Another reason to question the judgement of Meredith Kopit Levien / the younger Sulzberger...

jceg

Most of the top level comments support scrapping the deal, most of them on the basis that "sports gambling is a cancer." A cancer for whom? I want to take the opposite position: let people do whatever they want, as long as they bear the consequences of their decisions instead of socializing the risk. You don't like betting or gambling? Great, then don't do it. But forcing your preferences on others is not the way.

1vuio0pswjnm7

Ken Paxton went after gambling in Texas but stays hands off on Kalshi | https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/03/ken-paxton-kalshi-t... "Paxton didn’t sign on to attempts to regulate Kalshi after the prediction market platform and its CEO donated to him and his PAC."

nomilk

A great irony here is that Kalshi and media generally are competitors. When I make important decisions (e.g. understanding politics, where to travel and setup companies), I always value betting markets over hearsay (aka media). The former has real money at stake, whereas the latter often has no skin in the game (as well as a other issues; like herd mentality, sensationalism, incentive to tell people what they want to hear rather than what's true).

BIGFOOT_EXISTS

LETS GO MAKE SOME $$$

yipinwong

This is where stupid unions rubs me the wrong way. Unions are for improving worker conditions such as getting the right pay, and right working environment. They want to "run" the company themselves. Some might argue they are for keeping their current working env without Kalshi. They are not the ones who has to bear the financial responsibilities of the company. They can shove it and just move on.

brcmthrowaway

I feel some sports only exist because of gambling.