Why I (Eventually) Turned Down Polymarket
The Ragebait Era of Sports Betting Content
With apologies to Substack, I’m going to talk about Substack partner Polymarket. I’m apologizing because I don’t want to appear ungrateful. After that partnership was finalized, people at Substack reached out to me about doing a brief advertisement on House of Strauss. I received what was, to my mind, a considerably generous offer of $20,000 just to mention a Winter Olympics prediction market.
I took the money, which was quite welcome this tax season. I had some reservations about a partnership with a prediction market, but I prefer PMs to sportsbooks, where the game is always rigged. These days I occasionally use prediction markets, whereas I don’t use sportsbooks. I love sports prediction as a nerdy hobby, which informs why I’m partnered with Sports Predict, a non gambling platform. No, the point of this post isn’t to pump Sports Predict at Polymarket’s expense, though yes, I do love SP.
Anyway, I just received a larger offer from Polymarket, which I was on the precipice of signing. “Hey let’s buy a new car,” was a fun conversation to have in my household. But, as I look over the documents this morning, I just don’t think I can do it. The problem for me isn’t even the traditional moral questions that people discuss when it comes to prediction markets. My main issue isn’t that gambling is addictive, or that PMs create incentives for insider trading, or even that the presence of such markets might inspire real life transgressions. I mean, none of these aspects are good, but I can potentially rationalize them if pressed.
Instead my stumbling block is a content problem. The Prediction Markets are now involved in the sports discourse, in a bizarre negative way that fascinates me. I want to talk about it, and if I maintained a partnership, I’d avoid discussion. I’m not a hero (Remember, I took 20K from these people?). I’m just someone who needs this space to discuss many topics of sports media interest. And I want to talk about this.
Just what the hell is this and why is it happening?