Profiting off democracy: The monetization of voting grows

More news organizations are slipping into the warm embrace of prediction markets, and there’s no way that could go wrong … right?

The latest development: CBS owned-and-operated television stations will carry branding from DraftKings on election night, Status reports, causing some heartburn among executives uncomfortable with linking a betting and prediction market company to election coverage.

The story comes one day after a new study released by the Brennan Center indicating voters’ views of an election are influenced by information from prediction markets.

Oliver Darcy spoke in September at a Status media conference with two executives whose news organizations were steering clear of prediction market companies, at least for now.

Kopit Levien of the New York Times said the Times and its sports affiliate, the Athletic, were no longer pursuing a partnership with Kalshi after a backlash in the newsroom.

Nicholas Thompson of the Atlantic warned of the risk to a newsroom’s credibility if its editorial decisions appear in the minds of readers to be connected to any monetary stakes.

“Why on Earth would they trust us?” he said. “They wouldn’t.”

Nonetheless, a number of news organizations have struck deals with prediction markets, including CNN, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal.

And at that same forum, Andrew Ross Sorkin, who works for both CNBC and the Times, offered a different perspective. Brett LoGiurata wrote in Status:

His belief is that prediction-market odds will become as unremarkable a citation in political coverage as a poll number is today. There is a real case, he added, that these markets have already been more accurate than traditional polling. This debate is nuanced—as we at Status have highlighted, unreliable polling data has flowed into prediction markets just in the past few months, which has led to wildly incorrect forecasts.

Some might find that reassuring. But the further monetization of voting, and any other political event, changes the way votes are valued. They acquire an economic value unrelated to their actual purpose — profitable perhaps, but potentially warping and undermining the integrity of a fundamental democratic act.

This is where we always cue Cyndi Lauper: “Money changes everything.”