Better Markets' Schiffrin says Kalshi and Polymarket risk rigging elections
Better Markets' Ben Schiffrin appeared on Good Day Chicago on September 3 to argue that prediction platforms Kalshi and Polymarket enable election gambling and risk undermining electoral integrity. The segment highlighted legal risks of illegal activity in online prediction markets. Schiffrin questioned whether these platforms are influencing or rigging elections through their election-focused contracts. Both sources carried the identical headline framing the appearance.
Schiffrin's broadcast attack gives progressive lawmakers a ready-made soundbite for hearings on event-contract regulation. The election-rigging framing is sharper than the usual gambling critique and harder for platforms to rebut, since it alleges harm to democratic process rather than mere moral hazard. Kalshi and Polymarket now face three simultaneous narrative threats: CFTC branding rules, state gambling enforcement, and this new electoral-integrity line.
The latter is the most dangerous in Congress, where both parties compete to protect election legitimacy. Platforms with heavy political contract volume — especially Kalshi's congressional and State of the Union markets — cannot easily pivot away. The next legislative hearing on prediction markets will likely feature Schiffrin's clip, forcing platform lobbyists to defend election contracts on substance rather than process. That raises the political cost of keeping them live.
Better Markets' election-rigging critique joins a recent CFTC branding crackdown and a Ninth Circuit gambling-label ruling as the third major pressure front this month bearing down on Kalshi and Polymarket's political and sports event contracts.