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In January, Polymarket and Dow Jones announced an agreement that paved the way for event contract data to appear on various Dow Jones sites, including The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones also owns Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily and MarketWatch, among other media properties.
Polymarket also has marketing deals with Major League Baseball (MLB), Major League Soccer (MLS), the NHL and UFC.
While the Polymarket/Yahoo Finance situation is one of the earliest examples of a severed relationship between a prediction market operator and a media entity, that doesn’t mean those “divorces” will permeate the two industries.
How to play Eager Beavers
Tunisia has competing bills to prohibit or regulate online betting, neither of which has advanced. Egypt has relied on enforcement measures.
In all three, private online betting has no licensing route. Governments are tackling offshore demand through blocking, prohibition and criminal enforcement.
The contrast with land-based gambling is striking. Casinos in Morocco and Egypt operate within recognised frameworks and, in Morocco, attract international investment. Private online betting remains outside the legal market.
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The conclusion of the Yahoo Finance deal comes as there is more talk about the use of prediction market data in journalism. Operators such as Polymarket and rival Kalshi have touted their markets as a way to get real-time information on how likely future events are to occur.
However, some media industry observers have questioned whether trading activity can reliably stand in for broader public opinion. There are also concerns among critics over the growing links between news organizations and prediction platforms.
At the same time, prediction market operators are facing regulatory tussles in the US. State regulators are moving to shut down the firms under gambling laws. The companies say their contracts should be regulated at the federal level as derivatives.
