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Spotify Confirms Streaming Fraud After Kalshi Trader Cries Foul
19 days ago
- Caleb Davies, a top Kalshi trader, claims to have earned $1.2 million overall from prediction markets, including $414,000 from Kalshi's culture markets, by analyzing Spotify data.
- Davies suspects bot-fueled manipulation of Spotify-related prediction markets, citing Malcolm Todd's song 'Earrings' surging to number one as a highly improbable event.
- Spotify confirmed investigating and finding evidence of artificial streaming, adjusting charts by removing over 500,000 fake streams, which moved Todd's song from first to fourth.
- Kalshi removed Spotify's logo from its markets and adjusted language at Spotify's request, while investigating the matter, but had already resolved the market based on initial data.
- Polymarket denied involvement, noting it did not list Malcolm Todd as an option, and is reviewing streaming manipulation but has not identified any immediate manipulation.
- The incident highlights new incentives for streaming fraud in prediction markets, with concerns about susceptibility to manipulation raised by regulatory experts.
- Davies has decided to stop trading chart-based markets despite historical gains, citing the manipulation risks.
How Kalshi Infects the News
16 days ago
- CNN and CNBC have financial deals with Kalshi, a prediction market, and promote it extensively to viewers.
- Disclosure of the financial relationship is inconsistent; CNBC omitted it in at least 22 articles and on-air segments.
- CNN's 'The Odds' segment frequently features Kalshi, touting its accuracy, but it's paid and exclusive, preventing reporting on competitors like Polymarket.
- Kalshi's political markets are flawed, tending to compress toward 50%, overvaluing longshots and undervaluing favorites, misleading viewers.
- Kalshi's political markets represent only 4% of its trading volume, with sports accounting for 80%, but this is not disclosed on air.
The AI Superforecasters Are Here
16 days ago
- AI superforecasters have emerged, with startups like FutureSearch and Preseen claiming significant success in prediction markets and stock market outperformance.
- These AI systems typically use large language models like ChatGPT or Claude, enhanced with 'scaffolds' for improved forecasting through extensive research and subagents.
- Current AI superforecasters are competitive with top human superforecasters, with performance metrics showing near parity in forecasting competitions like the Metaculus Cup.
- AI superforecasters offer advantages over humans: they are faster, more diligent, standardized, and can be accessed easily without the logistical challenges of hiring human experts.
- In finance, AI may have a special advantage, as evidenced by Preseen's bot outperforming humans in finance-focused forecasting competitions.
- The trend suggests AI forecasting capabilities are improving rapidly, with predictions that they will surpass human experts within the next year or two.
- AI superforecasters could transform decision-making in finance, business, government, and personal life by providing accessible, high-quality probabilistic forecasts.
- Prediction markets may remain important for epistemic infrastructure, providing canonical forecasts that aggregate AI opinions and mitigate biases across different AI systems.
- Publicly available AI superforecasters include FutureSearch (open for use) and Preseen (in closed beta), with standard AIs also offering some forecasting capability behind the state of the art.
- A potential future role for AI superforecasters is as an 'opinion layer' for AIs, enabling them to provide forecasts on controversial topics while remaining grounded in empirical benchmarks.
New York can restrict sports gambling on prediction markets, US judge rules
13 days ago
- Kalshi lost a legal challenge to New York's gambling laws, with a federal judge rejecting its request to avoid enforcement.
- The judge ruled that federal registration with the CFTC does not exempt Kalshi from state gambling laws, allowing New York to regulate tangential issues.
- New York officials praised the ruling, emphasizing consumer protection and accountability for gambling platforms, including prediction markets.
- Kalshi is appealing the decision to a higher court, highlighting ongoing legal battles over state vs. federal regulation of prediction markets.
- The CFTC has a more lenient stance on prediction markets than states, and Kalshi and rival Polymarket have ties to Donald Trump Jr.
Manifest Man
8 days ago
- Manifest is a conference for the rationalist community, focusing on topics like AI, prediction markets, and self-improvement.
- Sessions included unusual exercises, such as a 'reinforcement learning' workshop where men attempted to become more desirable by receiving feedback, but it often ended in failure.
- Attendees aim to optimize their lives, treating social interactions and even reproduction as problems to be solved through data and markets, like selecting embryos for higher IQ.
- Prediction markets are central to the community, with advocates like Robin Hanson promoting 'futarchy'—using markets to make political and personal decisions.
- The culture combines hedonism (e.g., public cuddling, ketamine use) with a distrust of traditional institutions, seeking to replace expert control with market-driven knowledge.
- Despite its anti-establishment vibe, Manifest has ties to power, including figures from tech and finance, and aspires to become a more influential version of elite gatherings like Davos.
- The movement believes in radical transparency, using markets to reveal personal information (e.g., relationship odds, sexual desires), which is seen as a way to improve outcomes through 'annealing.'
White House teleprompter operator made $100K+ betting on Trump's speeches
6 days ago
- Trump's teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez allegedly made over $100,000 betting on Trump's speeches using inside knowledge.
- He placed bets on prediction market Kalshi for more than a dozen speeches, including the State of the Union and other key addresses.
- Kalshi flagged suspicious trades to the CFTC, and Perez is in settlement talks to return profits and avoid similar trades.
- The White House issued a memo warning staff against using nonpublic information for betting, while Perez continues in his role.
- CFTC investigators found Perez sometimes canceled bets mid-speech if Trump skipped certain words he had bet on.
- Federal prosecutors declined to open a criminal case, and the DOJ has brought insider trading cases on prediction markets involving others.
- Trump has criticized prediction markets but supports their operation, and his company considered launching its own market.
The Hair-Dryer Incident Is Just the Start
4 hours ago
- A person manipulated a temperature sensor at a Paris airport using a hair dryer (or similar device) to win about $20,000 on Polymarket, sparking police investigation and highlighting a new type of fraud.
- This 'outsider trading'—manipulating physical events to profit on prediction markets—is considered by some experts a bigger threat than insider trading.
- Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi face challenges with markets that are easy to rig, such as those based on single data points or simple outcomes.
- Examples of potential manipulation include Spotify streaming charts, Rotten Tomatoes scores, and even markets on health events like screwworm cases.
- Platforms could mitigate risks by limiting bet sizes, monitoring for suspicious trading patterns, and aggregating data from multiple sources.
- The platforms' marketing stunts, like staged viral chants, blur the line between reflecting reality and creating it, raising questions about their role as 'truth machines.'

Hasty Briefsbeta

#prediction markets

Spotify Confirms Streaming Fraud After Kalshi Trader Cries Foul

How Kalshi Infects the News

The AI Superforecasters Are Here

New York can restrict sports gambling on prediction markets, US judge rules

Manifest Man

White House teleprompter operator made $100K+ betting on Trump's speeches

The Hair-Dryer Incident Is Just the Start