Admittedly I have been nervous to speak about this but the recent series of prediction market deals have ultimately turned into a net negative for pretty much everyone in college media. From a self-interest perspective, this devalues my own passion projects which I have been fortunate enough to monetize. For the rest of my peers, these ads are potentially opening themselves up to financial ruin.
If you have been keeping an eye on social media, and especially if you read The Wall Street Journal and/or Politico, you may have seen Katherine Long's investigation into fake Polymarket bets made by influencers, Maya Kaufman and Jason Beeferman's Politico investigation into further paid influencer activities made on Polymarket, and fern's YouTube video summarizing the Polymarket campaigns published on Politico and in the WSJ, among various other journalists and online commentators. While well documented, they need to be considered in partnership with Kalshi's advertisements on collegiate social media accounts, such as my own industry peers.
The nearly 14-month long deal made between RedCup News and Kalshi is perhaps the biggest example of this in college-targeted social media. Nearly every "it's gameday" post on RedCup News college pages at major colleges such as Ohio State, Ohio U, UT Austin, Alabama, Auburn, Penn State and Tennessee have turned into Kalshi advertisements, sometimes without the required sufficient disclosures that are required by federal influencer laws. These captions often advertise that Kalshi is legal in all 50 states, which as of both the Sixth Circuit and earlier the Ninth Circuit ruling against Kalshi in September and August 2026 respectively, is now false. Regardless, at least in Ohio, Kalshi and Polymarket seemingly have refused to implement the state's required protections for gaming, or if the markets have implemented such measures executed them in insufficiently protective manners, such as the 21 minimum age, voluntary exclusion programs, and most importantly for budgets state tax revenue.
In an age where every social relationship needs to be taken personally and in an era where no publicity is better than bad publicity, RedCup's deals with Kalshi are reckless and irresponsible.
They also directly hurt other companies and independent operators such as myself. If pages like RedCup OSU can no longer be trusted to have the students' best interest in mind, how will students trust pages regardless? The status quo won't be to trust but verify pages, it will be to not trust pages at all. Even if you built it the right way by covering what's both funny and important, such as Charlie Kratus' Good Morning UCLA, the damage caused by the RedCup and Kalshi deal devalues the potential for an exit or to turn media into a career, for anyone, regardless of whether you're a Barstool viceroy, a Friday Beers page runner, a Snag content creator, or trying to build your own brand.
If you're reading this Mitch and Kenzie: do better.
