How prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket are aggressively targeting college students through fraternity partnerships and student influencers
Kalshi and Polymarket pour money into deals with social-media influencers and students, who try to parlay rumors, insider information into cash; 'We know this shouldn't be allowed'
Wall Street Journal
Context & Ripple Effects
Kalshi and Polymarket had already moved from early growth into a better-capitalized competitive phase: reported 2025 funding rounds and Kalshi's rapidly expanding trading volume gave both platforms more capacity to spend on user acquisition. This coverage shows that competition extending into campus social networks, not just product distribution or market liquidity.
First-order effects
Fraternities, student influencers, and their audiences become paid acquisition channels for Kalshi and Polymarket, while students are encouraged to treat campus rumors and purported inside knowledge as tradable inputs.
The recruitment model puts both platforms more directly alongside concerns about promoting speculative trading and the use of nonpublic information.
Second-order effects
Because both leading platforms are pursuing the same campus channels, student-influencer deals and fraternity partnerships can become a more expensive and reputationally sensitive battleground for customer acquisition.
Criticism of rumor- and insider-information-driven trading could bring greater scrutiny from universities, partners, and policymakers, raising the compliance burden around marketing and market integrity.
Third-order effects
If campus-led acquisition persists, prediction markets may increasingly resemble consumer trading platforms that compete through social distribution, rather than primarily venues for information aggregation.
The sector's ability to convert institutional capital into mainstream growth may hinge on whether it can demonstrate safeguards against manipulation and inappropriate targeting; failure to do so could constrain distribution.
The trend: Prediction-market platformization is shifting competition from liquidity and listings toward mass-market user acquisition, with social communities becoming a contested growth channel.
Young people seem to be (1) gambling a lot (2) targets for prediction market companies and (3) using these platforms primarily to find ways to do insider trading! [image]
“You can never start those kids too early on sports betting,” Nigel Eccles, the co-founder and former CEO of online sportsbook FanDuel, mockingly wrote. www.wsj.com/business/med...
there are plenty of moral/ethical reasons to not like prediction markets but the thing that's most interesting to me is the way that they are a machine that destroys trust. by democratizing insider trading everyone assumes the fix is always in. it's corrosive! www.theatlantic.…
At the center of the prediction markets boom is a bitter rivalry between two 20-something billionaire fintech bros vying for their companies to be distinct, despite everyone constantly lumping them together — “For them, it's existential,” a former Kalshi employee told me — ww…
NEW: A fraternity that counts Jeff Bezos' stepson as a member under investigation for insider trading. Polymarket-branded beer pong sets. $20,000 in funding to open a prediction market club. Here's how prediction markets are gaining ground on campus. https://www.wsj.com/...
“Yo brother, legal team confirmed that we can't work with minors rn,” a Kalshi employee wrote to the user in messages reviewed by the Journal. “Kinda sad tbh.” https://www.wsj.com/...
A fraternity that counts Jeff Bezos' stepson as a member under investigation for insider trading. Parties with Polymarket-branded beer pong sets. $20,000 in funding to open a prediction market club. — Here's how prediction markets are gaining ground on college campuses. www.w…
“Yo brother, legal team confirmed that we can't work with minors rn” is the best way to summarize this article, an impressively deep look at Kalshi and Polymarket's relentless nationwide campaign to recruit college students and get them hooked to prediction markets early. [embed…
Prediction markets are actively trying to turn college students into gambling addicts. They are some of the worst companies in America. It's pathetic that news organizations and other institutions are doing business with them. — www.wsj.com/business/med...