Temperature check: alarm as prediction markets lean into weather and climate bets — SkimNews
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- Kalshi partnered with the Weather Company to verify weather-related betting outcomes, with Kalshi's odds set to appear on the Weather Channel app used by more than 330 million people worldwide.
- Kalshi weather and climate predictions grew 500% in the past year into a $1.1 billion market, making weather "one of the fastest-growing and most crucial categories" at the exchange.
- Polymarket saw $1.2 million in bets on last year's Los Angeles wildfires, which killed at least 19 people in the Eaton fire; US users are now barred from wildfire markets, and Kalshi has never offered them, citing "perverse incentives."
- Available bets range from daily temperatures in specific cities to longer-term wagers on climate-fueled US disasters, coral die-off in Hawaii, whether the world will avoid catastrophic global heating, and how far Lake Mead will drop below its record-low levels.
- Kalshi co-founder Tarek Mansour has said the company's "long-term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion."
- Climate scientists Kaitlyn Trudeau of Climate Central and Michael Mann of the University of Pennsylvania warned the bets risk dehumanizing disaster victims and fueling conspiracy theories about weather manipulation, with Mann calling the trend harmful and Trudeau saying it "distances us from the impacts of climate change."
- A federal appeals court ruled last week that states can regulate prediction markets like gambling, after Nevada tried to shut down Kalshi — pushing platforms toward politically less fraught arenas like weather, according to Rutgers economic historian Jamie Pietruska.
- Pietruska warned the Weather Channel partnership could further erode public trust in the National Weather Service, the bedrock federal forecasting agency that has faced deep cuts under the Trump administration.
Why it matters: With Kalshi's odds reaching the Weather Channel's 330 million users alongside forecasts, climate betting is moving from niche gambling into mainstream weather consumption at a moment when the National Weather Service faces deep federal cuts — and Kalshi's claim that its markets can themselves improve climate forecasting drew a "confusing" rebuke from scientists who note future climate impacts cannot yet be calibrated against realized outcomes.
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