The dangerous symbiosis of prediction markets and sport

The symbiosis of prediction markets and sport is extremely dangerous and mysterious at the same time. Hardly anyone understands how the platforms actually work. Most agree that they can cause great harm. But everyone is taking part: Lionel Messi, LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo. And now Sydney Sweeney too. They are all making a profit from the boom in the so-called prediction markets, where you can bet under the appearance of financial trading: on Messi's goals, on James' points, on bombs in war zones.

“Just sports,” promises the US provider Novig, or rather: actress Sweeney, who in its latest commercial lounges (half) naked with either a football (“this sport”), a tennis racket (“or this sport”) or with soccer shoes (“this sport too”). No war, no politics, just sport.

But what she shows has nothing to do with sport. Ask those who need to know: “Sydney Sweeney, this is what female athletes look like,” said sprinter and four-time European champion Amy Hunt in an interview with the BBC on Sunday, “Blood, sweat, tears.”

Numerous athletes followed suit with clips of themselves on social networks. Australian water polo player Tilly Kearns wrote that she “hates” the campaign and former Australian professional swimmer Ariarne Titmus wrote that it made her “angry”. “Sport should be one of those places where it’s about what the body can do, not what it looks like,” wrote tennis player Priscilla Hon.

Studies show that many girls stop exercising during puberty because they feel uncomfortable with their bodies. For female athletes who have resisted the sexualization of their bodies for decades, the advertising must seem like mockery. Your criticism is as important as it is correct.

But she runs into a problem: after Sweeney's last scandalous advertising appearance, the share price of the jeans brand she was promoting skyrocketed. The shitstorm is part of the strategy. Sweeney, who has already invested in Novig, knows this best.

The target group is young men

The target group is different anyway: young men. A real wave of addiction has broken out in the USA since the liberalization of the betting markets in 2018. Surveys show that ten percent of eighteen to thirty-year-old men exhibit behaviors that indicate a critical gambling problem. Betting providers have known for a long time that hardly any target group can be driven into gambling addiction as quickly as young male sports fans.

But prediction markets are something like sports betting on steroids: They combine the addictive potential of gambling with the psychological mechanisms of fast stock trading. And they are only very loosely regulated in the USA. The wave of addiction could soon become an addiction tsunami.

And men's sports? Play the game. More and more leagues are cooperating with the prediction markets, and more and more athletes are getting involved. Where is the outcry? The men are silent. Maybe the scandal surrounding Sweeney's commercial will lead them to take an example from their loud colleagues. You shouldn't bet on that.