Waking up on a Saturday morning to find out that Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro has been captured in a lightning raid by United States special forces is surreal enough. But imagine learning of the raid on CNN and then being invited to bet on it.
CNN recently signed a deal with “web-based prediction market platform” Kalshi to “integrate prediction markets into its global newsroom,” and it is already advertising its product on the network. CNN, reportedly, will not turn its reporters into bettors, but it will feed Kalshi probabilities directly into the newsroom and put Kalshi graphics on air during relevant segments. The goal being, of course, to increase Kalshi’s market volume and profits.
“Kalshi lets you legally trade on anything, anywhere in the U.S.,” one Kalshi ad brags before closing with the tag line, “The world’s gone mad, trade it.”
Kalshi’s founder, Tarek Mansour, is not exactly humble in his vision for the company, which he has described as, “To financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.”
There is at least a working theory of how Kalshi financializing everything could improve the world. After a federal court ruled that Kalshi could take bets on the results of U.S. elections, Mansour said, “Now is finally the time to allow these markets to show the world just how powerful they are at providing signal amidst the noise and giving us more truth about what the future holds.”
But do these markets actually create “more truth” or do they help insiders get rich? In the hours before Maduro was captured, someone placed a $32,000 bet on “Maduro gets taken down” on Polymarket, a Kalshi rival, netting a $400,000 payout.
And then there is the uncertainty over what exactly is being wagered on. On that same Polymarket platform was a bet on whether or not the U.S. would “invade” Venezuela. But when bettors demanded payment from Polymarket after Maduro’s capture, Polymarket refused, arguing that the Trump administration was in “ongoing talks with the Venezuelan government” and that “the snatch-and-extract mission to capture Maduro” does not qualify as an invasion.
Online gambling has become a big business in America, so big that it has become the second fastest-growing sector in America in terms of GDP growth. The legal marijuana and pornography industries have also exploded, with OnlyFans creators alone reportedly raking in more than the entire NBA combined.
Libertarians will celebrate all this new economic activity as a triumph of liberty. But is there a point at which liberty to pursue behavior that actively harms oneself undermines our democracy?
The Founding Fathers certainly thought so. “To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea,” James Madison wrote in 1788.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other,” John Adams added in 1798.
And Benjamin Franklin was often quoted as saying, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
HUMANS ARE BETTER AT MONOGAMY THAN PEOPLE THINK
Legalized app gambling causes increased debt, bankruptcy, corruption, and suicide. Legalized marijuana causes increased schizophrenia, laziness, and impaired driving. Ubiquitous pornography normalizes sexual aggression (especially choking), disincentivizes the formation of new romantic relationships, and disrupts the maintenance of existing romantic relationships.
The obscene growth of the vice economy is not something to celebrate. It is a force we must oppose if our nation is going to survive.