How will gambling and prediction markets destroy the world? The darker part is still ahead.

From baseball players being bribed to throw bad pitches, to people heavily betting before U.S. military strikes Iran, and to reporters threatened to alter stories to match betting schemes. The logic of gambling and prediction markets is invading politics, war, and news at an astonishing speed — and the worst era may just be beginning. This article is based on a piece by Derek Thompson published on Substack, translated and compiled by Dongqu.

(Background: Polymarket and Kalshi team up to ban insider trading; Congress is pushing legislation to take full control of prediction markets.)

(Additional context: U.S. CFTC Chair announces the formation of an “Innovation Task Force” to set regulatory boundaries for crypto assets, AI, and prediction markets.)

Table of Contents

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• Baseball
• Bombs
• Bombs, again
• From laundromats to airplanes
• Four ways to lose (or: what is “manipulating pitches” in war?)
• The last virtue

Here are three stories about the current state of gambling in America.

Baseball

In November 2025, two Cleveland Guardians pitchers, Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, were indicted for conspiracy related to “manipulating pitches.”

Honestly, I’ve never heard of “pitch manipulation” before, but the federal indictment describes the method so simply it’s shocking — it’s a miracle this didn’t happen sooner. Three years ago, corrupt bettors approached these two pitchers with an enticing deal: (1) we bet on certain pitches being balls; (2) you throw those pitches into the dirt; (3) we win the bets, and you get a cut.

The plan worked — what’s the surprise? A baseball game has hundreds of pitches; no one cares about a single ball. The brilliance of these bets is that they offer high returns for gamblers, while for players and fans, they’re just tiny inconveniences. Before the scheme was uncovered, the fraudsters made $450,000 from those few pitches… and even the most die-hard Cleveland fans probably forgot those pitches the next day.

No one watching American entertainment would think they’re witnessing a six-figure fraud scheme.

Bombs

On the morning of February 28, someone placed an unusually large bet on Polymarket. It wasn’t on a baseball game or any sports event: it was a bet that the U.S. would bomb Iran on a specific