Weekly News Desk
Here are some stories you may have missed from another whirlwind week
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Now on to the News!
Kalshi and xAI?. On Tuesday morning Kalshi announced a content partnership with xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company. The agreement would have seen xAI bring tailored information to “traders” (or bettors) on Kalshi’s platform. Only a few hours later Kalshi formally and publicly rescinded the announcement.
Why does it matter: This partnership would have effectively made one of the largest social networks in the world (X, née Twitter) a PR arm of Kalshi and enable it to almost natively mine the site for customer sentiment in building markets. There is no indication yet as to why the announcement was pulled or if/when it might be resuscitated.
Corner Office. Most are expecting the so-called House Settlement to be approved by a federal judge any day now. Once it gets the green light the NCAA will no longer be in charge of discipline in the traditional sense and a new CEO will be appointed with all kinds of new responsibilities never before seen in college sports.
Why does it matter: The new CEO will have a tremendous amount of power over a multi-billion-dollar business. But with a relatively blank slate , the new CEO will set many precedents from the start about what is considered acceptable as new rules are put in place. It’s one of the more interesting and consequential decisions that will determine the trajectory of college sports for years to come.
Legislation Station. Brazil is mulling legislation that would place regulatory authority for nearly all things online, including gambling, under one agency— the National Telecommunications Agency. This would include a regulatory fee on a certain subset of digital service providers.
Why does it matter: Widespread legal gambling in the U.S. is new, and regulating it is also new. This is especially true now that prediction markets are aiming to put the federal government in the position of regulating sports gambling (or trading). It’s often helpful to look at how other countries deal with parallel (if not exactly similar) situations. It may be instructive to see how this change plays out if the law passes.
Second Chances. Yesterday Tottenham and Manchester United played in the finals of UEFA’s Europa League tournament. The bigger news (to me at least) was that the referee for the match was Felix Zwayer. In 2006 Zwayer served a six-month suspension stemming from an investigation into whether he took a £250 bribe from another official to fix a match. The other official was given a lifetime ban, while Zwayer denied any wrongdoing.
Why does it matter: Europe is farther down the road in dealing with gambling and sports integrity issues than we are here in the U.S., but it seems hard to imagine that a referee or umpire from a major American sport who was disciplined for alleged match fixing would be allowed to return and work, much less work a high-profile game. But hey, maybe we will get to a point as well where minor or accused scofflaws are welcomed back with open arms. It may also foreshadow allegations down the road in American sports where officials are accused of wrongdoing or impropriety based on speculation or circumstantial evidence. These sorts of accusations get made all the time on Twitter/X and elsewhere in countless circumstances these days. Sports likely are not immune.
Thanks for reading and have a good weekend!