There have been probably five instances — at the very least — this season that have made you think, it can’t get any worse. But the San Francisco Giants, to their credit, just keep getting worse. So shame on you for underestimating their abilities. They were always going to find new ways to make you reconsider your fandom.
The latest such strapping on of the scuba gear in search of previously unexplored rocks bottom came on Tuesday morning, when the Orwellian tech startup Kalshi announced a partnership with “five of the most iconic teams in baseball.” The humorous element is that one of the five teams is the San Diego Padres. The humorless element is that one of the five teams is the Giants.
Kalshi, for those unfamiliar, is perhaps the largest of the laughably-labeled “prediction markets.” Most people don’t know this (industry secret incoming), but “prediction market” is actually an acronym. The “P” stands for “per the laws and regulations of this country, you’re not legally allowed to gamble on your phone, but what is gambling but betting money on the possibility of future events, which, if worded differently, is really just investing in the possibility that future things might happen, which sounds totally legal and isn’t yet regulated.” I’m not sure what the “ediction market” part of the acronym stands for, but I’ve put in a call to some sources. I’ll update the article as needed.
There are a host of issues with Kalshi that, hopefully, will one day meet their match in court. Setting aside the comically blatant skirting of what constitutes “gambling,” Kalshi is positively dripping in moral bankruptcy. There was, for instance, February’s incident, in which rumors swirled that NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo was forcing his way off of the Milwaukee Bucks, with millions of dollars in bets being placed on his next destination; a few days later, he announced both that he had not wanted a trade, and that he owned a significant stake in Kalshi.
Far more dystopian was the July incident in which it was revealed that President Trump’s teleprompter assistant had allegedly made six figures off of betting — sorry, predicting — what Trump would say in his speeches. An honest way to make a living, really. As honest as anything his boss has done, at the very least.
While Kalshi and its competitors primarily are used for sports betting, there’s no shortage of alternate “predictions” that you can make and mostly lose money on. You can bet on the weather. You can bet on elections. You can bet on political coups, though Kalshi and similar companies have found themselves at the heart of multiple lawsuits regarding whether or not they are obligated to pay betters who predicted an ousting and were instead granted a death. Here’s a real headline from Forbes: Kalshi ‘Death Bet’ Lawsuit Sparks Push To Ban Assassination Markets.
And now they’re coming to your San Francisco Giants! In a press release, the Giants announced that the partnership is “bringing together two iconic brands to create new fan experiences at Oracle Park and across Giants platforms.” According to the San Francisco Chronicle, there will be signs, radio advertisements, and even “experiential activations,” to use the utterly preposterous phrase that senior vice president of partnerships Steve Tseng thought deserving of air time.
Before I continue ranting, I do want to acknowledge the Vegas-sized elephant in the room. Sports betting is intensely intertwined with the athletics we all love, and I am at some level complicit. At the top of this website you’ll find a drop down menu titled “Betting,” and in that drop-down menu you’ll find multiple links to FanDuel. I don’t receive checks directly from that company (which, it should be noted, deals only in sports betting, and not, you know … death and stuff), but it is part of what keeps my employer employed, and thus, me employed. So I’m not an entirely innocent model of angelic perfection, as much as I know you all like to tell me that I am.
But FanDuel is not Kalshi, and I am not a multi-billion dollar sports organization seeking predatory ways to eke every last penny out of a fanbase that has to take out a loan to buy a beer at the game.
And more importantly, I’m not playing both sides, which Major League Baseball — and the sporting world at large — continues to do.
Last year, All-Star reliever Emmanuel Clase was placed on leave, following allegations that he had purposely thrown balls to influence betting results; it seems overwhelmingly likely that he’ll never play in the Majors again. The year prior, Shohei Ohtani’s translator, Ippei Mizuhara, was imprisoned for stealing millions of dollars from Ohtani to repay sports gambling debts; while stealing eight figures is a defensible reason for arrest, the narrative around the story focused not on the money changing accounts, but on whether it was actually a cover for Ohtani betting. Which at least gifted us one final perfect tweet before the hellscape that is Twitter finally collapsed in on itself.
And in October, multiple people connected to the NBA — including Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups — were arrested for various roles in illegal gambling schemes. For a few people, including active player Terry Rozier, the allegations included faking an injury to avoid accruing a certain number of stats, allowing someone to earn boku bucks for betting the under.
There are plenty more instances. I could go on and on. But why revisit history when the future is going to provide us so many better examples?
The Giants, Major League Baseball, and sports as a whole, continue to play both sides against each other. They want you to be so obsessed with betting that you can’t settle for just living and dying with the end result; you need to be betting on each pitch. They want you to see baseball through the lens of predictions and stock market cash flow, and if they need to shorten games to deal with the waning attention span of a now, now, now gambling-needy society, so be it.
Just don’t let the players get in on it, or suddenly gambling is the devil incarnate.
And yes, before the tech bro apologists come for me, I do understand that there is a vital difference between a bystander and a player betting on an outcome. I have no defense for Clase or Rozier or anyone else getting caught up in these shenanigans.
But you reap what you sow. And even if you prescribe to the old notion that guns don’t kill people, but rather people kill people, you lose the right to make that argument when you glorify and glamorize the guns, and tell everyone exactly where to find them.
Now you’ll see Kalshi ads at the ballpark. Maybe on the mound. Maybe behind home plate, like we’ve all grown so accustomed to at other parks, with Kalshi’s biggest competitor, Polymarket.
Somewhere in Oracle Park, a fan or a thousand will bet on the next pitch, the next at-bat, the next injury, and the next score. And when the game ends they’ll funnel into BART, still high on the adrenaline of their gambling endeavors, chasing the dragon (and their newfound debts as well).
They’ll open Kalshi because that itch ain’t gonna scratch itself. They’ll bet on who wins Best Actor at the Academy Awards and if it will rain tomorrow and how much gas will cost next week and how many people will die in the latest food recall. They’ll drain their bank account and, in the process, the Giants will replenish theirs.
If you need hobbies that aren’t gambling or Giants baseball, let me know. I’ve got a long list of them.
