Journos Racing to Cash In on Gambling

03 October 2026

The digital content industry is experiencing a significant shift as newsrooms increasingly explore partnerships with gambling-related platforms, such as prediction markets, to capitalize on the sector's rapid growth and audience demand. While these collaborations present new revenue opportunities for financially strapped publishers, they also raise concerns about the potential impact on journalistic integrity and audience trust.

The gambling and prediction markets sector has seen a surge in interest in recent years, with the global online gambling market forecast to reach $127.3 billion by 2027, according to Statista. In the US alone, experts predict legal wagers related to the 2024 NFL season will hit around $20 billion, as ESPN reported.

Amid this marketplace expansion, major news organizations have begun to integrate gambling and prediction market content into their coverage. Last year, a report by Popular Information found that Advance Local, which owns more than 20 newspapers and around 100 digital sites in the US, had amplified gambling-themed content through its network. The Advance Local network published over 1,000 posts related to gambling between 2021 and 2023, according to the report, including promotional articles featuring promo codes for online casinos.

These partnerships come after years of heightened focus on sports betting in newsrooms, following the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to legalize the practice. The combination of increased mainstream gambling product use and publishers' financial pressures has created ideal conditions in which to integrate gambling content into news coverage.

In February of this year alone, the New York Times and USA Today published stories referencing PredictIt, a prediction market founded in 2014. While that content did not include advertising or promotion, its presence marks an evolution in the way some news organizations are beginning to discuss gambling predictions with audiences.

"To me...it's crossing an important line," Danny Funt, manager of Popular Information, told Nieman Lab. He added, "[I]t's possible that journalists in the future may think twice about reporting something that might be unflattering about the financial performance of a particular company...and may weigh that against the revenue that they're getting."

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Indeed, critics have warned that such partnerships could inadvertently lend a veneer of credibility to gambling products and chill coverage of the industry.

But while some audiences and critics may take issue with the arrangement, creators of sports-specific prediction markets say the companies' business goals align with those of sports media. "Our business is to tell fans what the odds are so they can make the best decision and decide whether or not they want to bet on that," John Richter, a co-founder of BetMGM, said. "Our business model is completely focused on engaging fans around sports."

Stationary newsrooms may soon gain a gambling competitor in the form of head-to-head prediction market publication. A Digital Content Next roundtable featured representatives from the Washington Post and Yahoo Sports, who discussed the growth of sports betting in digital media. In an interview with National Media Outlets, Peter Kafkalas, the former head of state relations for sports betting app FanDuel, said a "gambling-focused media channel" may debut in 2025.

It’s unlikely that newsroom partnerships with gambling products will stop growing any time soon, especially as publishers continue to pursue ways to monetize their content and reader base. That raises an important question for media watchers: will this content be seen as inherently promotional, or can newsrooms use this budding media channel in a way that provides credible information? Then, can they do so without undermining the trust of readers who rely on newsrooms for accurate, non-promotional news?