People Are Making Money Betting on Pretaped ‘Survivor’ Episodes

by ishtar_the_move

12 Comments

  1. ishtar_the_move on

    > You can also now make money by predicting the past: Who will win the 50th season of “Survivor,” which is currently airing but was filmed last year?

    >Kalshi and Polymarket, the two largest prediction markets, are offering bets on reality television shows, including “Survivor,” “The Bachelorette” and “Top Chef,” which are usually taped months before they are broadcast. That means the people who know the outcomes — like contestants and production staff — could make surefire bets before the episodes air and win thousands of dollars.

    >Those bets can also essentially reveal the outcome to the rest of the world (but we won’t spoil any upcoming episodes here).

    >There’s no proof that anyone associated with “Survivor” is placing trades. But enough bets are being placed to move the markets in very clear directions. Ahead of last week’s episode of “Survivor,” a Kalshi market gave one contestant, “Q” Burdette, 98 percent odds of being voted off the island in that episode. There were 21 players left, any of whom could have gone home, but Burdette was indeed the one eliminated.

    >The Kalshi market for tonight’s episode of “Survivor” also has one contestant with a 98 percent chance of elimination.

  2. theeMrPeanutbutter on

    Before they changed up editing quite a bit, a certain website predicted the winner of a season from episode 2. Wouldn’t wanna bet against whatever they suggest.

  3. Betting on predetermined things where hundreds or thousands of other people already know the outcome is one of the dumbest things I could imagine doing

  4. FuelForYourFire on

    Doesn’t that also mean that

    People Are LOSING Money Betting on Pretaped ‘Survivor’ Episodes?

  5. Who is betting on this? These sites don’t make a market themselves (or their supposedly not doing so) so for every bet there must be a sucker who is willing to bet the other way.

    I refuse to believe there are substantial numbers of people pre-betting all sides of an episode that hasn’t aired. That’s idiotic. That a handful of interns or players in the know would slip some money onto the right answer is understandable if there’s a substantial market in betting the wrong way.

    No, in fact I’m pretty sure these prediction markets are secretly making their own markets after all. They select a broad basket of bets on popular tv properties that have wide demographic penetration. Then they place enough house money into those markets to make them look attractive. Not with the intention of winning, but with the intention of building interest in the platform.

    This is akin to Uber having secretly been subsidizing its own rides for the first years of service to try to build interest.

    Kalshi’s taking WS money and pumping into their platform to create artificial engagement. Tale as old as time. In that case I can’t really blame those who are in the know from pocketing a bit of the house money.

  6. nowhereman136 on

    If you can make a bet on anything, of course people are going to exploit that by betting on things they have advanced knowledge on. It’s not only an socially harmful business, it’s a fucking dumb business.

  7. MrsNoodleMcDoodle on

    People have bet on Survivor since season 1, but it is rare that a season isn’t spoiled these days. I think season 43 last completely unspoiled season. I WISH I had placed a bet on that one, because I guessed it right when so many had it dead ass wrong.

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