Gambling Website Dangles Grocery Money In Marketing Ploy

A controversial gambling app will give some New Yorkers grocery money. The dystopian stunt comes amid a city cost-of-living crisis.

Kalshi, a so-called prediction market, said Monday that it will cover $50 worth of food items at the WestSide Market in NYC at a special event on Tuesday. According to the New York Post, Kalshi will “completely rebrand” the market with its logos for the one-day promotion.

It’s unclear how many shoppers will receive $50 in free groceries—which doesn’t cover much in NYC—or what they must do to receive the funds (e.g., be a registered Kalshi gambling user). The WestSide market is close to the company’s headquarters, so it’s in a higher-income area.

Criticism of Kalshi Marketing Tactic

Kalshi is following an old brick-and-mortar casino ploy to target vulnerable people.

Jack Hu, an anti-New York City casino organizer, told GamblingHarm.org that Kalshi’s promotion is similar to how casinos offer meal vouchers to entice people to gamble.

“These predatory tactics they’re using have been used on working people and seniors for the past three decades in NYC,” Hu said. “They give free bus, meal, and gambling vouchers to casinos in Connecticut and New Jersey as a way to suck low-income people into the casino. As much as Kalshi likes to dress up its business model as ‘prediction markets,’ it does not pass the smell test when you just look at the tactics.”

Despite its multibillion-dollar valuation, Kalshi faces legal uncertainty in the U.S., as several states question whether its product facilitates illegal sports gambling. In New York, proposed prediction market legislation could threaten its business model.

Prediction markets are addictive platforms that don’t appropriately address potential user harm, according to one Kalshi lawsuit. The company has targeted users on college campuses.

“Kalshi can’t be shuttered fast enough. It’s a demonic institution akin to a moth,” one observer wrote in response to the grocery promotion on the company’s social media post.

Critics of prediction markets have highlighted their misleading or false news content on social media. But this Kalshi marketing gimmick appears real.