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Spoiler! How prediction markets broke reality TV
If it looks like cheating and smells like cheating, it’s probably cheating
byAlex Abad-Santos
Jul 17, 2026, 11:00 AM UTC
Alex Abad-Santosis a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
We live in an era where you can bet on anything: sports, elections, wars, the temperature in Los Angeles tomorrow, company profits, and everything in between
It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that people are spending millions of dollars on online prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket to bet on reality TV. Right now, you could place a bet as to who’s getting eliminated on Big Brother or whether former New York City Mayor Eric Adams will be cast on the upcoming season ofDancing With the Stars. What is shocking is how confident and accurate the calls have been — in the neighborhood of 90 percent and above — on the winners and losers of some of the biggest television shows.
But who is making these bets and how are they doing it so accurately?
The obvious answer is that people are trading on these prediction markets with insider information, which is easy to do when shows like Survivor and its results are taped months in advance. Thanks to the gambling regulation gray area that prediction markets currently occupy and the limits of NDAs, there’s plenty of money to be made with very little consequence for anyone who knows how a season of Survivor played out
And now that spoiling a TV show has become so profitable so quickly, and because Kalshi and Polymarket are so culturally enmeshed, the show’s biggest fans are paying the price
How Polymarket and Kalshi made betting on TV a reality
As long as there have been reality TV finales and winners, prognosticators have always had some odds-on favorites. Back in 2000, in the first season of Survivor, Vegas oddsmakers thought Sue Hawk — not eventual champion Richard Hatch — was going to win. Similarly, in 2002, Vegas (again incorrectly) placed the odds on Justin Guarini beating out Kelly Clarkson in the American Idol season finale. Since then, linemakers and bookies have sized up shows like The Bachelor (and all of its permutations), Big Brother, The Voice, Amazing Race,Top Chef, and sorted out the favorites and winners.
But despite the betting lines, you couldn’t legally put money on them. To this day, many states only allow gambling on lotteries, sports events, racing, and in commercial casinos. Only a few allow betting on entertainment awards shows like the Oscars
That’s where Polymarket and Kalshi come in
Because they’re categorized as federally regulated prediction markets, these apps allow users to wager on “outcomes” that do not officially fall under the umbrella of gaming or gambling, which would be governed by state authorities (Kalshi is currently in a legal battle with New York State over gambling regulation). And so predicting the winners, losers, eliminations and plot developments of reality shows and TV programs for money is — technically — totally legal. At least right now
In addition to betting on who’s taking home the prize on shows like Survivor and Top Chef, Polymarket users can also bet on which Big Brotherhouseguest will get eliminated in week one or whether or notTraitors winner and former Love Islander Rob Rausch will be cast on the 35th season of Dancing With the Stars. Over on Kalshi, there are bets on whether or not Ariana Madix, who was just nominated for an Emmy, will host the next season of Love Island
Why betting on reality TV winners is shockingly accurate
Because reality competition shows are typically shot a few months before they are released to the public, and because they feature a lot of cast members, crew members, and production team members, it’s possible — and easy — for insider information to trickle out before the biggest reveals are aired
The networks’ goal is to prevent leaks and spoilers, which would ultimately make the season less exciting to watch and hurt ratings. They do that through NDAs. According to TMZ, Survivor’s contract reportedly has a $5 million penalty for leaks, while shows likeThe Bachelor, according to former participants, have NDAs that stipulate contestants cannot even reveal they’ve been cast. Ultimately, the goal is to make sure no one knows who won or how far anyone on the show got
But even the strictest measures come with gray areas
Even though a contestant might be bound by NDAs and contractual agreements, their neighbors, co-workers and acquaintances aren’t. Those people might notice that their neighbor, co-worker, or acquaintance went on a lengthy “vacation” and might be aware that a show like The Traitors or The Bachelor — which they happen to know their buddy applied for — was filming at the same time. If all these pieces fell into place, they could ostensibly put two and two together, figure out if the person in question was cast and how long they were away, and not be subject to any sort of NDA.
How to protect your viewing bliss
The easiest, no-fail way to make sure the internet and betting markets don’t spoil your favorite reality TV show is to make sure you never fall in love with a reality TV show. But if you do, maybe choose something off the Betting Beaten Path: For example, my current obsession is Peacock’s The Five Star Weekend. Jennifer Garner plays an Ina Garten-like fancy rich white woman, who invites four friends to have a girl’s weekend to mourn her dead husband. There are no Kalshi bets surrounding that show (that I’m aware of).
If you can’t help but love competitive reality TV and loathe spoilers, fans told me that you have to keep that interest as casual as possible. Don’t go on social media, don’t go to message boards, don’t follow Kalshi on social media, don’t even talk about it in person! They also told me that a live ongoing reality show like Big Brother or Love Island, where episodes are turned around quickly (usually daily) are less prone to spoilers
This type of casual investigation is common in reality TV fandoms; aficionados triangulate social media presences, production dates, rumors, and gossip to pinpoint possible future contestants and learn everything about them
Opening up Kalshi or Polymarket with this type of information could lead to more informed bets and better winnings
And there’s increasing suspicion — though no proof — that people with advance knowledge of the outcomes are using it on prediction markets
As Ben Blatt pointed out in The New York Times earlier this year, “enough bets are being placed to move the markets in very clear directions,” noting that two players — “Q” Burdette and Mike White were voted off with 98 percent odds the day their episodes aired. Kalshi even tabbed eventual champion Aubry Bracco as one of its favorites all season — way before Aubry became a player to watch closely — and had her at over 90 percent odds of winning leading up to the finale
The accuracy of these bets, along with Survivor being pre-taped, raises the possibility that people with at least some knowledge of how the season played out, were making bets. That doesn’t rule out insider trading or other contractual violations. But it’s also possible that many of these bets came from a legal gray area, with people simply acting on information pieced together from obsessive fan forums and online sleuthing
In May, Robert Denault, Kalshi’s head of enforcement, wrote on X, “so far, no traders with large positions seem to have a relationship to the show or to the network. Thousands of traders took early positions consistent with the outcome, likely because of public rumors. And public rumors don’t equal insider information.”
How betting is ruining the best parts of Survivor
Obviously, people placing bets are deeply interested in reality TV winners, but so are these shows’ devout fans. To many of them, especially those who have never been interested in putting down money, the online gambling aspect is yet another way the internet has significantly altered, if not ruined, their favorite pastimes
To really understand the tension, you have to know that any episode of reality TV — whether it’s Big Brother, TheTraitors, or The Bachelor, etc. — is just one part of the experience. There’s joy in speculation, discussing episodes, favorite players, clues, power rankings, and strategy on social media and message boards. For these fans, the important stuff may not be who wins and who gets eliminated, but the way the story unfolds. Griffin Nathaniel Brown, a Survivor aficionado who runs a Survivor and Big Brother fan account, believes Kalshi and Polymarket have trashed this integral component of reality TV.
“The huge problem with being in these spaces online is that you cannot escape seeing people post about the Kalshi projections,” Brown told me. “Sometimes, I’ll post something speculative about the show, and somebody will just put in the comments who wins. It’s so annoying, and I feel as though I can’t be surprised by the outcomes anymore.”
When it comes to reality TV, Survivor feels like it was built in a lab to satiate predictive markets. Every episode features someone winning immunity, someone getting kicked off, and a vote. There’s also a champion at the end of the season and (usually) a final three. These are all things you can bet on. And unlike shows like Love Islandor Big Brotherthat air their results live, it’s all been taped months before
“It’s wild to me that it’s allowed to happen because you’re literally betting on a predetermined outcome. It is a thing that has fully already happened,” said Joe Reid, a senior writer at Vulture, podcaster, and Survivor enthusiast
Reid explained that while the show takes steps like the aforementioned NDAs and a live finale, secrecy is brittle because people love to talk. That’s why, he says, the show has always had spoilers about elimination order floating on the internet. But prediction markets and the opportunity to make a profit with little to no consequences have fully weaponized them
“The easiest money to be made is if you are one of the 10 people who know who won a season of Survivor,” Reid said. “Aubry has the incentive to not tell anybody because she could lose her prize money. But it’s [spoilers] probably not coming from Aubry. It’s probably coming from somebody who knows somebody who finished 12th that season or something like that.”
Reid told me that he was spoiled on the most recent season while browsing Kalshi for Oscar odds earlier in the year, before any episode had aired. Once he saw Aubry’s odds flying sky high, it was essentially confirmed for him. But other fans I spoke to said that they’re not even on Kalshi and Polymarket, but because those two platforms have become such big cultural forces, the Kalshi and Polymarket spoilers are impossible to avoid
“It would spread all over social media who was being voted out that night,” Zachary Flick, a Survivor watcher, told me. Flick explained that betting would shift the day of an episode airing, and everyone would start talking about the repositioning and irregularities online
“I had Dee, Emily, and Ozzy’s boots spoiled for me that way,” he added
Polymarket or Kalshi executives are probably not up at night, worried about ruining everyone’s favorite shows when millions of dollars are being traded on reality TV. Neither is the person making thousands (if not more) spoiling each episode. They, like the Survivor winners they’re betting on, have already won
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