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More than $1 billion flowed through the prediction market platform Kalshi during Super Bowl weekend, a staggering figure that shows how quickly these exchanges have moved from fringe tech curiosity to mainstream money machine. That kind of volume should alarm anyone who cares about the health of our communities and the integrity of our laws, because when gambling migrates to the shadow of a financial exchange it becomes harder to regulate and harder to hold accountable.
Kalshi’s CEO even admitted that more than $100 million was wagered on which song Bad Bunny would open with, and the company said over $325 million had been traded less than an hour before kickoff, numbers that underline how the halftime spectacle was monetized in real time. The platform’s own founders acknowledged deposit delays amid the traffic surge, which exposes the fragility of letting billions in bet-like money flow through lightly supervised tech systems. Americans deserve transparency about who profits from these markets and how consumer protections are being sacrificed on the altar of Silicon Valley speed.
This isn’t just about novelty props and celebrity performances; prediction markets have exploded from politics into sports and now dominate the volume picture, shifting billions that once might have been taxed and regulated at the state level. Observers note the pivot from election markets in 2024 to sports-heavy activity in 2025, raising legitimate questions about whether federal oversight via the CFTC is appropriate for what looks very much like legalized gambling. What started as an experiment in “truth discovery” is increasingly operating like a nationwide sportsbook dressed in fintech clothes.
Conservatives have every right to be skeptical when pop culture and politics collide with big money. Critics from the right, including public figures who questioned the NFL’s decision to hand the halftime stage to Bad Bunny, warned this would become cultural theater as much as a musical moment, and now we see the commercial consequences. When a halftime act turns into a $100 million prop market, it’s a reminder that cultural elites and the platforms that service them can monetize influence in ways that bypass traditional accountability.
The fiscal and regulatory stakes are real: states could lose tax revenue as betting activity migrates to federally supervised exchanges, while critics rightly point out that these markets replicate sportsbook behavior without the same patchwork of consumer protections. Lawmakers and regulators must stop treating this as an abstract technology debate and start asking hard questions about tax fairness, consumer safety, and the jurisdictional games these platforms are playing. The American people should not be left to pick up the tab for regulatory gaps created by platforms that profit from addictive, fast-moving wagers.
Republicans and conservatives who champion small business and honest markets ought to lead on this issue: demand Congressional hearings, push state attorneys general to examine lost revenue and consumer harms, and insist the CFTC explain why a platform that looks like a sportsbook gets to operate with one hand tied behind the regulator’s back. Kalshi’s celebrity backers and headline-grabbing numbers are a convenient cover for an industry that wants to scale quickly without the guardrails the rest of us live under. It’s time to protect American families from the financial and cultural predators that thrive when regulation lags behind profit.
