Prediction markets are partnering with top athletes and sports teams. Why it’s taking the magic away for many fans

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In college, JJ Allison was so successful at sports betting that even the friends of friends who functioned as low-level bookies stopped taking his money.

That success translated to legal sports books as well when those debuted. Eventually they, like the bookies, didn’t want him betting with them either. His bets were limited to cents at a time.

Prediction markets, however, don’t limit winners. That’s part of why Allison, now 25, prefers them and how he’s able to make a living as a professional prediction market trader.

He’s steeped in these platforms, professionally invested, and not prone to conspiratorial concerns about insider trading or game fixing. And yet, when CNN Sports asked to speak with people who bet on sports but don’t like prediction markets partnering with sports leagues, teams or athletes themselves, Allison was among the dozens of fans who reached out.

“While I’m obviously very invested in Prediction Markets, I think the permeation of ‘gambling’ into every fabric of society is incredibly detrimental,” he wrote in his initial email.

Nowhere is that permeation more widespread than in sports. In the years since a Supreme Court ruling opened the door to legalized sports gambling in 2018, teams and leagues have embraced partnerships that have turned broadcasts, ballparks, arenas and, for a time, an entire regional sports network into billboards for sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings.

Eight years into this gambling frenzy, virtually every major sports league in America has one, if not multiple, partnerships with sports books . Most teams do as well. Leagues, like MLB and the NFL , have leveraged these partnerships to try to limit certain kinds of bets that are understood to be particularly vulnerable to manipulation. But the dangers and damages of even legalized sportsbooks are well documented . And their ubiquity, many fans say, feels increasingly oppressive.

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The result is that some sports enthusiasts who were initially excited about legal opportunities to bet on sports are now resentful of teams and leagues for “shoving it down everyone’s throat,” as 25-year-old Connor Lew from New York City told CNN Sports.

These prediction market partnerships have, for some, become emblematic of what fans see as unfettered greed on the part of teams, players, leagues and platforms believed to be degrading their experience of sports writ large.

“It’s another version of the fact that you have to have eight streaming platforms if you want to watch every game. They’re looking for every way to extract every last dollar from the fans, and that would be me,” said 54-year-old Rick Brody in Queens, NY.

It is in this atmosphere of increasing backlash to sports gambling that nearly a quarter of MLB teams announced partnerships with prediction markets over the summer, following a league-level deal at the start of the season, and were met with a response that reflected not just fatigue, but betrayal.

Asked if their particular concern was motivated by the prediction markets specifically or the broader encroachment of gambling into sports, fans differed. For some, the seemingly lax federal regulation and pending litigation around prediction markets raised alarm bells. For others, they lumped them in with sports books.

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The general consensus was that this latest wave of partnerships felt like a final straw, or a bridge too far.

To them, it’s gambling creep – from the shadowy corners of offshore bookies to something mainstream superstar athletes are eager to promote.

These fans don’t hate betting – plenty of them partake – but this is different. Many of those who spoke to CNN Sports said they feel like the thing that they love – the thing that connects them to their dad or their mom or their hometown or their friends – is making a mockery of that love. Many of them say these partnerships make the fan feel like a mark for helping the rich get richer.

Allison worries everyday fans are being conditioned to see the diamond – or the court or the field – as slot machines and the human athletes as spinning symbols that sometimes align as dollar signs.

“If you’re a family going to like the ballpark with your kids on a Saturday afternoon or something, I don’t think that gambling should really be a part of it,” Allison said. “I think that adding a money aspect just kind of incentivizes the wrong thing.

“Like people may go and they say, ‘Oh, I’m rooting for the (New York) Yankees to win.’ And then in six years, most people at the Yankees game are there because they want to make money on the Yankees winning. And it’s not really about the Yankees winning or losing – it’s about them making money in the process.”

CNN has a partnership with Kalshi and uses its data to cover major events, though CNN editorial employees are prohibited from trading on prediction platforms.

When LeBron James announced a partnership with prediction market Polymarket on X – in a video featuring Eli Manning and Derek Jeter , among other celebrities – the replies were filled with accusations that he was “selling out.”

“He’s just rubbing it in now huh,” one person posted in response.

“It” here is something like financial security – wealth, and how it often seems that in order to have access to it, you must already possess it. The deal is reportedly worth $15 million a year, nearly four times what James is paid to play basketball for the Philadelphia 76ers.

But also, to be more specific, it is how the adoration of sports fans made James a billionaire and gave the kid from Akron, Ohio, access to a space labeled “sports” but positioned – as shown on the elevator panel in the Polymarket ad – between “crypto” and the “economy.”

What some people who spoke to CNN Sports saw in the ad was an exclusive club of sports celebs reveling in how good it is to be rich – laughing about being part of an inside joke where the punchline is the fans.

“I hear rich people state all the time that money doesn’t buy happiness,” Brian Carroll, a 22-year-old professional gambler from Philadelphia, wrote in an email exchange after the partnership was announced, “then see people who already have more money than they could spend in 10 lifetimes willing to make the world worse to get more of it.”

“I don’t feel like what I do is immoral. But I do think these things are bad,” he said of the prediction market partnerships when he spoke to CNN Sports before the ad was released.

CNN Sports reached out to James’s agent for comment and did not receive a response.

Ahead of this season, Major League Baseball announced a league-level partnership with Polymarket. In July, the New York Mets became the first MLB team to strike an individual deal with a prediction market, partnering with the lesser-known peer-to-peer platform Novig.

The announcement was flooded with critiques and the Mets’ post announcing the partnership on X was deleted and reposted multiple times.

Soon after, the Yankees announced their own partnership with Polymarket. And then Kalshi announced it had partnered with five other teams , including the Los Angeles Dodgers. Some outlets speculated the muted rollout of Kalshi’s new partnerships was a response to the backlash the New York teams received, although the teams disputed that characterization to CNN Sports.

(The Yankees declined to comment on their Polymarket partnership. The Dodgers and Boston Red Sox declined to comment on their Kalshi partnership. The Mets, Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres did not reply to a request for comment.)

“We’re pleased to welcome Kalshi to the Giants family,” said Steve Tseng, senior vice president of partnerships for the San Francisco Giants. “Creating unmatched experiences for our fans is a top priority, and we’re excited to work with Kalshi to deliver on that commitment.”

In a statement, Novig said, in part, “The current online sportsbook model is predatory because sportsbooks make money when their customers lose, which creates inherently misaligned incentives. Our exchange model is different: we don’t profit from customer losses, winners are rewarded, and that makes for a fundamentally better product.”

“We work with leagues and teams to give fans new ways to engage with the games they love, and with integrity built in from the start,” a Polymarket spokesperson said.

Theo Marie-Courtois/AFP/Getty Images

Novig also pointed to its 21-and-older age requirement, which is unique among prediction markets. Kalshi did not comment on the fan frustrations specifically.

As the law currently stands, prediction companies are treated like financial exchanges and are regulated by the federal government. But dozens of states argue that these companies offer gambling, and they’re fighting in courts across the country to apply their state gaming regulations.

The companies are regulated on the federal level by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, which has historically focused on overseeing soybean futures and oil derivatives. And prediction platforms are required to police insider trading and report fraud on their sites, among other things.

But in the words of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in August that states can regulate prediction market sites, “the CFTC is not a national gambling regulator.” There is no federal analogue to state laws that restrict deceptive marketing, promote responsible gaming and fund addiction programs.

In contrast to other sports entering into partnerships with the prediction markets as they stand, the NFL recently came out in favor of increased regulation . The league, which accounts for the largest volume of trades on prediction markets, filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to let states regulate prediction markets as they do sportsbooks.

When CNN Sports put out a call on social media to talk to people who bet on sports but do not like their teams partnering with prediction markets, the callout received dozens of responses. The Kalshi CEO publicly criticized the line of inquiry, and that inspired another deluge of emails.

Among the responses, accusations that that these partnerships are “predatory,” “slimy and scammy,” “disingenuous, if not completely hypocritical,” “disgusting,” “dirty,” “dangerous to young people,” and “all so f**king gross.”

These are people who care enough about sports – a “sacred medium,” as John B. from Boston called it – to be concerned about these partnerships with prediction markets corrupting the space.

They concede that some of this is probably just part of getting older and becoming more cynical about the financial motivations at the core of institutions preying on their emotional investment. And yet, these partnerships inspire a particular fury.

“If you make it so overtly about the dollars, then it’s not the magical thing why people love it,” said Alexander Tsipis, a 30-year-old from Boston who was among more than a dozen people CNN Sports spoke to in depth about their objection to these partnerships.

“It’s like when you find out Santa Claus ain’t real. Christmas starts to suck,” said Dustin Franklin, a 43-year-old attorney from Tennessee who now lives in West Virginia. “And that’s kind of what it is with gambling and sports.”

“I personally think it’s sort of just like a late-stage capitalism thing,” says Miles Grossman, a 25-year-old aspiring sports broadcaster in the New York area. “As wealth gets more concentrated at the top, the masses feel like, ‘Well, I cannot possibly get rich, so at least I could possibly get a little money this way if I play my cards right.’”

Grossman has been betting for more than half his life. His dad was a gambler – “what I’d like to call a very responsible sports bettor,” he says. After college, he worked at FanDuel for a stint. These days he gambles on both the legal sportsbooks and on Kalshi.

But Grossman says betting and trading seems less cool – “loser s**t” as he puts it – now that they’re omnipresent and the dangers of gambling addiction are widely known .

“The idea of getting rich off gambling is such a joke in 2026,” Grossman said. “Like there’s so many barriers to it.”

At a time when cost of living is soaring and the job market is precarious, it’s not hard to fathom why more than a quarter of young people say sports gambling is part of their long-term financial plan.

But Allison and Carroll are rare exceptions. Broadly speaking, fans don’t get rich from betting on sports – in fact, nearly one-third have gambling debt – and they don’t benefit from partnerships between betting platforms and their favorite teams. It doesn’t make the experience of watching or attending a game better or cheaper. It doesn’t make the on-field or on-court team more likely to win.

“But what does come to fruition is some rich dude is getting richer at my f**king expense,” Franklin said.

Nobody CNN Sports spoke to speculated that the prediction market partnerships were currently tied to any nefarious schemes within sports. But most mentioned that the increased integration between gambling and sports would inevitably erode public confidence in the product over time.

“Not that I’m saying any one individual I would suspect of doing something fraudulent, but it’s just so obviously present as a potential that it’s scary,” said Bobby Fallarino, a 32-year-old teacher from Queens, New York.

It’s an optics issue as much as anything else. When scandals are revealed, teams and leagues with close ties to gambling companies are accused of hypocrisy. (It’s worth noting, the CFTC has proposed limiting markets that are especially vulnerable to individual actors.)

When the officiating feels unfair or there’s a late-game swing in fortunes that meaningfully alters the outcome, “You start asking, ‘Is the fix in?’ or whatever. Instead of just being like, ‘Oh, that’s crazy,’” said Ben Gibson, a 40-year-old from North Carolina.

Cheng Xin/Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

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A Polymarket spokesperson responded to concerns about insider trading by saying, “Insider trading is banned on our platforms, and athletes, coaches, officials and anyone else who can influence an outcome can’t trade. We enforce those rules with advanced, real-time surveillance. We restrict accounts, refer cases to authorities, and strict monitoring has helped lead to federal insider-trading charges. Our league partnerships also let leagues see trading around their games and flag concerns directly.”

And Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said, “Insider trading happens in all financial markets, from stock markets to prediction markets. Prediction markets distill trading into a single question — narrowing the range of information material to a traded event contract. We may see different types of insiders trying to break the rules, but it also may be simpler to prove insider trading in some of these cases because the material info is narrower and easier to identify. On Kalshi, and under federal law, insider trading is banned. We surveil, investigate, and punish it.”

But that doesn’t mean the perception isn’t out there.

“People are a lot more likely, I think, to lean into the implication now,” Gibson said of the conspiracy thinking that can follow a controversial call that leads to losing money. “I think the leagues can only blame themselves because this is who they’re partnering with.”

And even the respondents who are skeptical of anything actually affecting the integrity of the games, are concerned about the possibility – known to exist beyond sports – of insider trading on the prediction markets.

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images

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“From layman’s perspective, it just seems like it’s a platform that lends itself so much more to the insider trading,” said Jorge Adames-Reyes, a 25-year-old Harvard Law student, who pointed to what he called a “refreshingly bipartisan effort” to litigate prediction markets as evidence that these platforms have not been sufficiently vetted.

At least some of the team partnerships are only through the end of this baseball season. MLB’s league-wide deal reportedly includes exit-clauses in case the legality of prediction markets change.

“But in the meantime, (the message seems to be), ‘We’re happy for you to spend your money with us and watch a Mets broadcast and be exposed to Novig commercials,’” Adames-Reyes added. “I think that’s the part that ideologically just makes me feel really uneasy.”

Fans are eager to talk about these prediction market partnerships because they want the people in positions of power to understand that they’re not stupid, even if they find themselves as pawns in enriching people on either side of the deals.

No one said they would stop watching their favorite team or betting as the result of these partnerships, but fans still express frustration.

“They really are just laughing in your face because Kalshi knows (Milwaukee) Bucks fans aren’t going to stop rooting for Giannis,” Franklin said (referring to Giannis Antetokounmpo’s team at the time of the deal) – and that extends to fans of any team or player with a prediction market partnership.

Even the winners understand that gambling on sports comes at a cost.

“With betting, it’s very much an anti-fandom,” Carroll, the professional gambler from Philadelphia, said. “Like, it makes it less fun to watch sports.”

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And sometimes, you have to lose to retain any fun at all.

Allison, the professional prediction market trader living in Miami, watched the Super Bowl in Las Vegas this year – epicenter of sports gambling – surrounded by neutral fans. But as a kid, he watched New England Patriots games at home in Massachusetts.

The rational part of him that knows how to empirically assess a smart bet knew he should put his money on the Seattle Seahawks to win.

“But I kind of felt this moment of betrayal,” he said reflecting on that experience. “Here I am at 25 years old now, betting against the team that I grew up rooting for because I think it’ll make me money. And I felt almost disgusted with that idea.”

So, he didn’t. Allison put a little bit of money on the Patriots. They lost, and so did he. Even though he broadly benefits from the system that allows wagering on sports, in this instance he sacrificed some amount of money to prioritize the purity of the fan experience.

Fans just want their favorite players, teams and leagues to do the same.

Meg McLaughlin/《圣地亚哥联合论坛报》/Getty Images

在大学期间，JJ Allison 在体育博彩方面非常成功，以至于连朋友的朋友——那些从事低级博彩的人——都不再接受他的钱了。

他的成功也延续到了合法体育博彩领域。但最终，和那些庄家一样，这些博彩公司也不想让他参与投注。他每次的投注额都被限制在几美分以内。

然而，预测市场并不会限制赢家的数量。这正是现年25岁的艾利森更喜欢预测市场，并以此为生的原因之一。

他精通这些平台，专业投资，而且并不担心内幕交易或操纵比赛等阴谋论。然而，当CNN体育频道请求采访那些参与体育博彩但不喜欢预测市场与体育联盟、球队或运动员本身合作的人时，艾利森是数十位联系他们的球迷之一。

“虽然我显然对预测市场投入了很多资金，但我认为‘赌博’渗透到社会各个层面是非常有害的，”他在第一封电子邮件中写道。

这种渗透在体育界最为普遍。自2018年最高法院裁决为体育博彩合法化打开大门以来，各支球队和联盟纷纷与博彩公司建立合作关系，将转播、球场、体育馆，甚至一度将整个区域体育网络都变成了 FanDuel 和 DraftKings 等博彩公司的广告牌。

这场赌博狂潮持续八年，美国几乎所有主要体育联盟都与博彩公司建立了合作关系，有的甚至不止一家。大多数球队也是如此。像美国职业棒球大联盟（MLB）和美国国家橄榄球联盟（NFL）这样的联盟，利用这些合作关系试图限制某些被认为特别容易被操纵的投注类型。但即使是合法的博彩公司，其危险性和危害性也早已被充分证实。许多球迷表示，博彩公司的无处不在让他们感到越来越难以承受。

Scott Olson/Getty Images

结果是，一些最初对合法体育博彩机会感到兴奋的体育爱好者，现在却对球队和联赛“强迫所有人接受”感到不满，正如来自纽约市的 25 岁康纳·卢告诉 CNN 体育频道的那样。

在某些人看来，这些预测市场合作关系已经成为球迷眼中球队、球员、联赛和平台肆无忌惮的贪婪的象征，他们认为这种贪婪正在降低球迷对体育运动的整体体验。

“这其实是另一种说法，那就是如果你想看每一场比赛，就必须订阅八个流媒体平台。他们想方设法从球迷身上榨取每一分钱，而我就是其中之一，”54岁的里克·布罗迪在纽约皇后区说道。

正是在这种对体育博彩日益强烈的抵制氛围下，继赛季初达成联盟层面的协议后，近四分之一的美国职业棒球大联盟球队在夏季宣布与预测市场建立合作关系，而得到的反馈不仅反映了人们的厌倦，更反映了背叛。

当被问及他们特别关注的是预测市场本身，还是赌博对体育的更广泛侵蚀时，球迷们的看法不一。对一些人来说，看似宽松的联邦监管以及围绕预测市场的悬而未决的诉讼让他们感到担忧。而另一些人则将预测市场与体育博彩混为一谈。

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普遍的共识是，最新这波合作浪潮感觉像是压垮骆驼的最后一根稻草，或者说是难以逾越的鸿沟。

在他们看来，这是赌博的蔓延——从境外博彩公司的阴暗角落，到主流超级明星运动员热衷推广的东西。

这些球迷并不讨厌博彩——事实上，他们中的许多人都参与其中——但这次的情况有所不同。许多接受CNN体育采访的球迷表示，他们感觉自己所热爱的事物——将他们与父母、家乡或朋友联系在一起的事物——正在被嘲弄。他们中的许多人认为，这些合作关系让球迷觉得自己成了被利用的对象，帮助富人变得更加富有。

艾莉森担心，普通球迷正在被潜移默化地认为，棒球场（或球场）就像老虎机，而运动员就像旋转的符号，有时会排列成美元符号。

“如果你是一家人，打算周六下午带孩子去棒球场玩，我觉得赌博不应该成为其中的一部分，”艾莉森说。“我认为加入金钱因素只会助长不良行为。”

“比如有人会说，‘哦，我支持（纽约）洋基队赢球。’然后六年之后，大多数去看洋基队比赛的人都是为了从洋基队的胜利中赚钱。洋基队的输赢其实并不重要——重要的是他们能从中赚钱。”

CNN 与 Kalshi 建立了合作关系，并使用其数据报道重大事件，但 CNN 编辑人员被禁止在预测平台上进行交易。

当勒布朗·詹姆斯在一段视频中宣布与预测市场 Polymarket 在 X 平台上建立合作关系时——该视频中还有伊莱·曼宁、德里克·杰特以及其他名人出镜——评论区充斥着指责他“出卖灵魂”的言论。

“他这是在故意炫耀啊，”一位网友评论道。

这里的“它”指的是经济保障——财富，以及人们常常认为，要想获得财富，就必须先拥有财富。据报道，这份合同价值每年1500万美元，几乎是詹姆斯在费城76人队打球收入的四倍。

但更具体地说，正是体育迷们的崇拜让詹姆斯成为了亿万富翁，并让这位来自俄亥俄州阿克伦的孩子得以进入一个被贴上“体育”标签的领域，但正如 Polymarket 广告中的电梯面板所示，这个领域介于“加密货币”和“经济”之间。

一些接受 CNN 体育频道采访的人从这则广告中看到的是一个体育明星组成的专属俱乐部，他们沉浸在富有的美好之中——他们嘲笑自己是内部笑话的一部分，而笑点在于粉丝。

“我经常听到富人说金钱买不到幸福，”来自费城的 22 岁职业赌徒布莱恩·卡罗尔在合作关系宣布后的一封电子邮件交流中写道，“然后我看到那些已经拥有十辈子都花不完的钱的人，为了获得更多金钱，甘愿让世界变得更糟。”

“我不觉得我做的事情是不道德的。但我确实认为这些事情很糟糕，”他在广告发布前接受 CNN 体育采访时谈到预测市场合作关系时说道。

CNN体育联系了詹姆斯的经纪人寻求置评，但没有收到回复。

本赛季开始前，美国职业棒球大联盟宣布与Polymarket达成联盟层面的合作关系。今年7月，纽约大都会队成为首支与预测市场单独达成协议的MLB球队，他们与知名度较低的点对点平台Novig建立了合作关系。

该公告发布后遭到大量批评，大都会队在X平台上发布的合作公告被多次删除和重新发布。

不久之后，洋基队宣布与Polymarket达成合作。随后，Kalshi宣布与包括洛杉矶道奇队在内的其他五支球队建立了合作关系。一些媒体猜测，Kalshi低调推出这些新合作关系是为了回应纽约球队此前遭受的强烈反对，但这些球队向CNN体育否认了这种说法。

（洋基队拒绝就其与Polymarket的合作关系置评。道奇队和波士顿红袜队拒绝就其与Kalshi的合作关系置评。大都会队、亚特兰大勇士队和圣地亚哥教士队未回复置评请求。）

“我们很高兴欢迎卡尔希加入巨人队大家庭，”旧金山巨人队高级副总裁兼合作关系负责人史蒂夫·曾表示，“为球迷创造无与伦比的体验是我们的首要任务，我们很高兴能与卡尔希合作，共同实现这一承诺。”

诺维格在一份声明中表示：“目前的在线体育博彩模式具有掠夺性，因为博彩公司通过客户输钱来赚钱，这造成了固有的利益冲突。我们的交易模式则不同：我们不从客户的输钱中获利，赢家会得到奖励，这使得我们的产品从根本上来说更好。”

“我们与联赛和球队合作，为球迷提供参与他们所热爱的比赛的新方式，并且从一开始就秉持诚信原则，”Polymarket 的一位发言人表示。

Theo Marie-Courtois/AFP/Getty Images

Novig还指出，其21岁及以上的年龄限制在预测市场中是独一无二的。Kalshi没有就粉丝的不满情绪做出具体评论。

根据现行法律，预测公司被视为金融交易所，并受联邦政府监管。但数十个州认为这些公司提供赌博服务，并在全国各地的法庭上力争适用本州的博彩法规。

这些公司在联邦层面受到商品期货交易委员会（CFTC）的监管，该委员会历来专注于监管大豆期货和石油衍生品。预测平台除其他事项外，还必须监管内幕交易并举报其网站上的欺诈行为。

但正如第九巡回上诉法院在8月份裁定各州可以监管预测市场网站时所言，“美国商品期货交易委员会（CFTC）并非全国性的博彩监管机构”。目前尚无联邦层面的法律与各州限制欺骗性营销、推广负责任博彩和资助戒瘾项目的法律类似。

与其他体育项目目前与预测市场建立合作关系不同，NFL近期公开支持加强监管。作为预测市场交易量最大的联盟，NFL提交了一份法庭之友意见陈述，敦促最高法院允许各州像监管体育博彩公司一样监管预测市场。

CNN体育频道在社交媒体上发起了一项调查，旨在了解那些参与体育博彩但不希望自己支持的球队与预测市场合作的人的情况，结果收到了数十条回复。Kalshi首席执行官公开批评了这项调查，这又引发了新一轮的邮件高峰。

在这些回应中，有人指责这些合作关系是“掠夺性的”、“卑鄙的、欺诈性的”、“虚伪的，甚至完全是伪善的”、“令人作呕的”、“肮脏的”、“对年轻人有害的”，以及“这一切都太他妈恶心了”。

这些人非常关心体育——正如波士顿的约翰·B.所说，体育是“神圣的媒介”——他们担心与预测市场的合作会腐蚀这个领域。

他们承认，部分原因可能只是随着年龄增长，人们对那些利用他们情感投入的机构背后的经济动机越来越愤世嫉俗。然而，这些合作关系尤其激起了他们的愤怒。

“如果你把一切都看得太重，只关注金钱，那就失去了人们喜爱它的魔力，”来自波士顿的 30 岁男子亚历山大·齐皮斯说道。CNN 体育频道就这些合作关系与十几位人士进行了深入交谈，齐皮斯是其中之一。

“这就像你发现圣诞老人并不存在一样，圣诞节就变得索然无味了，”现年43岁、来自田纳西州、居住在西弗吉尼亚州的律师达斯汀·富兰克林说道，“赌博和体育也是如此。”

“我个人认为这有点像是资本主义晚期的一种现象，”25岁的迈尔斯·格罗斯曼说道，他是一位住在纽约地区的体育播音员。“随着财富越来越集中在顶层，大众会觉得，‘好吧，我不可能致富，所以至少如果我行事得当，或许还能通过这种方式赚点钱。’”

格罗斯曼赌博的时间超过了他人生的一半。他的父亲是个赌徒——“我更愿意称之为非常负责任的体育博彩者，”他说道。大学毕业后，他曾在 FanDuel 工作过一段时间。如今，他既在合法的体育博彩网站上赌博，也在 Kalshi 网站上赌博。

但格罗斯曼表示，现在赌博和交易无处不在，赌博成瘾的危害也广为人知，所以赌博和交易似乎不再那么酷了——正如他所说，是“失败者的玩意儿”。

格罗斯曼说：“在2026年，靠赌博发财简直是个笑话。这其中有太多障碍。”

在生活成本飙升、就业市场不稳定的当下，不难理解为什么超过四分之一的年轻人表示，体育博彩是他们长期财务计划的一部分。

但艾莉森和卡罗尔是罕见的例外。总的来说，球迷不会靠体育博彩发财——事实上，近三分之一的球迷背负着赌债——他们也不会从博彩平台和他们支持的球队之间的合作中获益。这既不会让观看或参与比赛的体验更好，也不会让费用更低。这也不会增加场上球队获胜的概率。

“但最终的结果却是，某个有钱人靠着我的血汗钱变得更加富有，”富兰克林说道。

CNN体育频道采访的所有人均未猜测预测市场合作关系与体育界的任何不法行为有关。但大多数人提到，博彩与体育日益紧密的融合，随着时间的推移，必然会削弱公众对体育产品的信心。

“我并不是说我怀疑某个人做了什么欺诈行为，但这显然是一种潜在的风险，令人担忧，”来自纽约皇后区的32岁教师鲍比·法拉里诺说道。

这在很大程度上是一个形象问题。丑闻曝光后，与博彩公司关系密切的球队和联盟会被指责虚伪。（值得注意的是，美国商品期货交易委员会（CFTC）已提议限制那些特别容易受到个别行为者操纵的市场。）

“当裁判判罚不公，或者比赛后期局势发生重大转变，结果发生显著变化时，你就会开始问，‘是不是有内定？’之类的。而不是仅仅觉得，‘哦，这太离谱了，’”来自北卡罗来纳州的 40 岁男子本·吉布森说道。

Cheng Xin/Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

对中期选举背书、集会、辩论和退选者的投注引发了对内幕交易的担忧。

Polymarket发言人针对有关内幕交易的担忧回应称：“我们的平台严禁内幕交易，运动员、教练、官员以及任何可能影响比赛结果的人员都不得进行交易。我们通过先进的实时监控系统来执行这些规定。我们会限制账户，将案件移交有关部门，严格的监控也帮助我们成功追回了联邦内幕交易指控。此外，我们与各大联盟的合作关系也让联盟能够查看比赛前后发生的交易情况，并直接举报可疑交易。”

Kalshi发言人伊丽莎白·戴安娜表示：“内幕交易存在于所有金融市场，从股票市场到预测市场。预测市场将交易简化为一个单一问题——将信息范围缩小到与交易事件合约相关的特定事件。我们可能会看到不同类型的内部人士试图违反规则，但在某些情况下，由于关键信息范围更窄、更容易识别，因此证明内幕交易可能更容易。在Kalshi平台以及联邦法律下，内幕交易是被禁止的。我们会对其进行监控、调查和处罚。”

但这并不意味着这种看法不存在。

吉布森谈到因争议判罚导致亏损而引发的阴谋论时说：“我认为，现在人们更容易相信其中的暗示。我认为联盟只能怪自己，因为他们就是和这些人合作的。”

即使是对任何可能影响比赛公正性的因素持怀疑态度的受访者，也对预测市场中可能存在的内幕交易感到担忧——这种内幕交易在体育界之外也存在。

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg/Getty Images

“首届预测市场选举”搅乱了中期选举

“从外行人的角度来看，这似乎是一个更容易进行内幕交易的平台，”25 岁的哈佛法学院学生 Jorge Adames-Reyes 说。他指出，针对预测市场的诉讼，出现了他所谓的“令人耳目一新的两党合作”，这证明这些平台还没有得到充分的审查。

至少部分球队的合作关系仅持续到本赛季结束。据报道，MLB的联盟协议中包含退出条款，以防预测市场的合法性发生变化。

“但与此同时，（传递的信息似乎是），‘我们很乐意让你把钱花在我们这里，观看大都会队的比赛直播，并接触到诺维格的广告，’”阿达梅斯-雷耶斯补充道。“我认为正是这一点，从意识形态上来说，让我感到非常不安。”

粉丝们热衷于谈论这些预测市场合作关系，因为他们希望那些身居要职的人明白，他们并不愚蠢，即使他们发现自己成了交易双方致富的棋子。

虽然没有人表示会因为这些合作关系而停止观看自己喜欢的球队比赛或停止投注，但球迷们仍然表达了不满。

“他们真的只是在嘲笑你，因为卡尔希知道（密尔沃基）雄鹿队的球迷不会停止为扬尼斯加油，”富兰克林说道（指的是扬尼斯·安特托昆博在交易达成时的球队）——而且这适用于任何与预测市场有合作关系的球队或球员的球迷。

即使是赢家也明白，体育博彩是有代价的。

“赌博其实是一种反球迷行为，”来自费城的职业赌徒卡罗尔说。“它让观看体育比赛变得没那么有趣了。”

Z世代记者称网络体育赌博已成为影响大学生的“流行病”

有时候，你必须经历失败才能保留一丝乐趣。

艾利森是一位居住在迈阿密的职业预测市场交易员，今年他在拉斯维加斯——体育博彩的中心——观看了超级碗，周围都是中立球迷。但小时候，他是在马萨诸塞州的家中观看新英格兰爱国者队的比赛。

他理性的一面懂得如何通过经验来评估一个明智的赌注，他知道他应该把钱押在西雅图海鹰队身上。

“但我当时确实感到了一种背叛，”他回忆起那段经历时说道。“我现在25岁了，却因为觉得能赚钱而押注我从小支持的球队输球。我当时对这种想法感到几乎作呕。”

所以，他没有。艾利森押了点钱在爱国者队身上。他们输了，他也输了。尽管他总体上从体育博彩体系中获益，但这一次，他为了维护球迷体验的纯粹性，牺牲了一些金钱。

球迷们只是希望他们喜爱的球员、球队和联赛也能这样做。