With on-line betting on the rise within the US and the rise of entertainment-focused prediction markets, is the identification of playing evolving?
The ambiance of playing is altering quickly as extra improvements enter the area. Prediction markets are encroaching on the area of conventional playing corporations, with market leaders like Kalshi partnering with main manufacturers like CNN to ascertain a foothold within the conventional media area.
CNN companions with Kalshi to combine prediction markets into its international newsroom.
The primary main information community to embrace Kalshi prediction markets.
A brand new period of media is right here. pic.twitter.com/uXLlWVLjQs
— Kalshi (@Kalshi) December 3, 2025
The rising prevalence of prediction markets implies that cultural or entertainment-based contracts have gotten ever extra synonymous with betting. A fast look over Kalshi’s bets, for instance, reveals some you’d anticipate from conventional sportsbooks, but additionally some extra uncommon choices, corresponding to “What’s going to Carmelo Anthony say throughout The Tonight Present Starring Jimmy Fallon?”, or “‘Avatar: Hearth And Ash’ Rotten Tomatoes rating?”
“My shoppers don’t see themselves as gamblers anymore. They’re ‘engaged followers’ utilizing apps that appear to be social media.” – Ava Chavez, Mission Prep Healthcare Adolescent Companies Vice President
What’s extra, conventional playing manufacturers are chasing down individuals’s consideration spans with increasingly more leisure or game-driven approaches. Microbets throughout dwell sports activities occasions and same-game parlays turn out to be quickfire, low-cost bets which are seen extra as a part of the enjoyable of watching dwell sports activities than taking a threat on a wager.
“The playing business is reframing itself into one thing that doesn’t really feel like playing in any respect, and that’s precisely what worries me,” stated Aja Chavez, Vice President of Adolescent Companies at Mission Prep Healthcare, a teen residential well being care heart, whereas chatting with ReadWrite. “My shoppers don’t see themselves as gamblers anymore. They’re ‘engaged followers’ utilizing apps that appear to be social media.
“The business has efficiently rebranded betting as leisure, and it’s working. Individuals spend hours on these platforms with out recognizing it as playing as a result of it looks like simply one other a part of watching sports activities. After I ask them about it, many genuinely don’t join their day by day app use with what their mother and father did on the bookies.”
This isn’t essentially one thing wholly new, in fact. Casinos, maybe one of the vital conventional types of betting, has all the time leaned into the glitz and glamor of the spectacle.
What’s new, nevertheless, is how prevalent this entertainment-meets-gambling ambiance is when it may be funnelled out to everybody by way of gaming apps and on-line slots video games.
Playing is changing into more and more woven into locations usually reserved for leisure. You will discover playing odds and prediction markets seamlessly on social media platforms like X, exposing extra individuals to betting-style companies from new demographics.
A brand new kind of bettor
Because the traces blur between leisure and playing, it brings new individuals into the world of betting. Whereas that’s not inherently a foul factor, the dearth of correct consciousness about downside habits can go away them uncovered to dangers they’re unused to dealing with.
Certainly, David Weisselberger, founding associate of Erase The Case, a legislation agency devoted to aiding people in resolving their felony historical past, has seen a rising variety of first-time offenders being charged with petty theft or embezzlement. Every offense tends to be for lower than $1,000 and was sparked by makes an attempt to cowl up or fund weekend ‘enjoyable’ betting losses, typically by means of misappropriating firm funds or small-scale fraudulent acts.
“The standard threat evaluation fashions utilized by regulators don’t seize this demographic of customers as a result of they don’t gamble regularly sufficient or with the desperation of a conventional playing addict,” Weisselberger defined to ReadWrite. “Nevertheless, they proceed to help their households and maintain down full-time employment till they get arrested.”
Though on a small scale that tends to slide below the radar, these are extra early indicators of probably dangerous habits that would get missed.
“Prop Bets and In-Recreation Micro-Wagers create a psychological framework that causes customers to see their betting actions as a type of media consumption and never as high-stakes wagering,” added Weisselberger. “When a consumer locations ten $50 prop bets on whether or not a quarterback’s passes will likely be accomplished, he/she views the exercise as paying a premium for an enhanced viewing expertise. It creates a decrease barrier to entry for many who could by no means stroll right into a on line casino as a result of they don’t understand themselves as gamblers.”
Change is required
Whereas that is all nicely and good for playing corporations, it opens up new and probably worrying questions on gambling-related hurt discount.
“When it comes to how we should always measure threat and hurt, our conventional methods had been constructed for a distinct period,” defined Chavez. “We search for issues like chasing losses, mendacity about cash, or determined monetary conditions. These nonetheless matter, however they miss one thing essential about trendy betting.
“What I’m seeing now’s a brand new sample. Individuals are shedding cash regularly by means of fixed, small bets, they usually’re spending monumental quantities of time on these platforms. By the point these basic warning indicators seem, the psychological hooks are already deep.”
Within the US, a few of the indicators that playing operators have to preserve a watch out for as a part of social accountability calls for embody escalating wager sizes, chasing losses, elevated deposits, extended play, and indicators of economic points like borrowing cash.
Nevertheless, as Chavez factors out, micro bets won’t end in these early indicators in the identical approach, however the identical unhealthy and damaging behaviors may nonetheless be taking root, particularly amongst weak individuals.
“I consider we have to begin searching for completely different purple flags,” Chavez stated. “We have to ask questions on how a lot of somebody’s time and mindspace the platform consumes, whether or not betting has turn out to be woven into their identification as a fan, and simply how normalized it’s turn out to be of their day by day life. That’s the place the hurt begins now.”
Playing hasn’t simply modified type – it seems to have modified that means.
Featured picture: Unsplash
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