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Spoiler! How prediction markets broke reality TV.

If it looks like cheating and smells like cheating, it’s probably cheating.

We live in an era where you can bet on anything: sports, elections, wars, the temperature in Los Angeles tomorrow, company profits, and everything in between.

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that people are spending millions of dollars on online prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket to bet on reality TV. Right now, you could place a bet as to who’s getting eliminated on Big Brother or whether former New York City Mayor Eric Adams will be cast on the upcoming season of Dancing With the Stars. What is shocking is how confident and accurate the calls have been — in the neighborhood of 90 percent and above — on the winners and losers of some of the biggest television shows.

But who is making these bets and how are they doing it so accurately?

The obvious answer is that people are trading on these prediction markets with insider information, which is easy to do when shows like Survivor and its results are taped months in advance. Thanks to the gambling regulation gray area that prediction markets currently occupy and the limits of NDAs, there’s plenty of money to be made with very little consequence for anyone who knows how a season of Survivor played out.

And now that spoiling a TV show has become so profitable so quickly, and because Kalshi and Polymarket are so culturally enmeshed, the show’s biggest fans are paying the price.

How Polymarket and Kalshi made betting on TV a reality

As long as there have been reality TV finales and winners, prognosticators have always had some odds-on favorites. Back in 2000, in the first season of Survivor, Vegas oddsmakers thought Sue Hawk — not eventual champion Richard Hatch — was going to win. Similarly, in 2002, Vegas (again incorrectly) placed the odds on Justin Guarini beating out Kelly Clarkson in the American Idol season finale. Since then, linemakers and bookies have sized up shows like The Bachelor (and all of its permutations), Big Brother, The Voice, Amazing Race, Top Chef, and sorted out the favorites and winners.

But despite the betting lines, you couldn’t legally put money on them. To this day, many states only allow gambling on lotteries, sports events, racing, and in commercial casinos. Only a few allow betting on entertainment awards shows like the Oscars.

That’s where Polymarket and Kalshi come in.

Because they’re categorized as federally regulated prediction markets, these apps allow users to wager on “outcomes” that do not officially fall under the umbrella of gaming or gambling, which would be governed by state authorities (Kalshi is currently in a legal battle with New York State over gambling regulation). And so predicting the winners, losers, eliminations and plot developments of reality shows and TV programs........

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