Weekly News Desk
Here are some stories you may have missed from another whirlwind week
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Now on to the News Desk!
Partner Track. New Jersey adopted a new law that prohibits public colleges and universities from entering into partnerships with sports betting companies. The law encompasses booster organizations and athletic departments and extends to ad placement in arenas and stadiums as well as in school-sponsored digital and broadcast media.
Why does it matter. This is a new step toward curbing what some describe as the pervasive spread of sports gambling on college campuses. This development coincides with a time when university athletic departments are increasingly looking for new revenue streams in a new world order of college sports. The new law does not seem to bar athletes from entering into NIL deals with sports gambling companies. And as always, there is no indication whether prediction markets count as “sports wagering.” It will also be interesting to see if any private universities pursue a sponsorship agreement with a gambling company. Or what would happen if a conference with a New Jersey public university entered into a partnership with a gambling company.
Clear as Mud. For people curious about prediction markets one of the best case studies has to be Polymarket’s catastrophe of a market asking whether Ukrainian President Zelenskyy would wear a suit by a certain day. (Read the story in the link for a real deep dive from Dustin Gouker.) Does this seem like a straightforward question? Yes. Does it seem like something people should really be spending time and money thinking about? Well $145 million has been traded on the topic so apparently yes. The deadline for the market to resolve was June 30 and after about a week of deliberation the market ultimately resolved to no on appeal after initially resolving to yes. This came in the aftermath of Zelenskyy wearing what some considered a suit at the NATO Summit on June 24. The authority cited by Polymarket to determine whether he wore a suit was a “consensus of credible reporting.”
Why does it matter. Polymarket has billed itself as the arbiter of truth. It has said that policymakers should look to Polymarket as a source for developing policy— as a better indicator of public sentiment than traditional polling. Kalshi has said similar things. Granted sports outcomes (this is a sports focused newsletter after all) are usually a bit more black and white than “Did a Guy Wear a Suit”, which is helpful. Usually odd prop bets are not the lion’s share of revenue for state-licensed sports books. But Polymarket and Kalshi offer “traders” a menu that spans from wagering on the winner of a given game, to predicting sartorial choices of leaders, to what words an executive will say during an earnings call. Are they trying to use markets to pursue truth or are they just plaforms for people to wager on random things that may or may not be determinable in a factual and publicly fair way?
NC News. Aggregate numbers are always great to look at even if they often don’t paint as vivid a picture as anecdotal evidence. But when numbers tell a compelling story that’s even better. North Carolina released its June 2025 gambling revenue report this week and as SBC Americas reports it shows that the state is well ahead of its revenue projections. Gamblers in North Carolina bet $6.4 billion between July of 2024 and June of 2025.
Why does it matter. Crunching some numbers, that comes out to about $116 million in tax revenue. Based on recent census numbers it also equals about $582 bet per person in NC. Which seems like a lot. According to the report, when state lawmakers calculated their projections for revenue, they did not expect to exceed $100 million in tax revenue until 2028. This trend leads me to three questions— 1) Will NC legislators seek to add any curbs or guardrails given the new data; 2) Will states that haven’t yet legalized sports gambling see these numbers and make the leap? 3) Will federal policymakers see these numbers and take any additional action?
TV Homecoming. Longtime NBC sportscaster Bob Costas sat down for an interview with Meet the Press host Kristen Welker to talk about the rise of online sports betting. It’s a 40 minute long conversation but they cover a lot of ground. And when it comes to sports, Bob’s 40-plus year run saw him witness much in the sports world— Olympics, Super Bowls, World Series and more.
Why does it matter. The headline from the interview is Costas warning that legalized sports betting will ruin lives. He talks about how his father was an “inveterate gambler” and how the fortunes of his family often turned on how his father did as a gambler. He also talks about how his father’s gambling was both a way for him to bond with his father and helped him understand a lot of nuance of sports. It is an interesting conversation about his first person experience with gambling, his broader view of gambling, and how he sees the interplay of the rise of gambling and sports journalism.