The Golden Globes is no stranger to controversy, but after spending a few years rebuilding its reputation and audience, the awards show is now tying itself to a controversial prediction marketplace that seems almost tailor-made for insider trading.
The Golden Globes announced Thursday that it is partnering with Polymarket, a platform where users can essentially bet on the outcome of real-world events by buying and selling contracts on whether an event will occur or not.
As part of the deal, Polymarket will provide real-time market insights during the official 2026 Golden Globes viewing party.
“The Golden Globes have long been a place where audiences debate and predict what will happen next,” said Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan in a press release. “By pairing cultural debate with market-based probabilities, we’re giving fans a new, more interactive way to follow the show as it unfolds.”
The partnership comes as the awards body has managed a notable comeback after facing backlash just a few years ago. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 2024 Golden Globes averaged 9.47 million viewers, up 51% from 6.25 million for the 2023 ceremony.
In 2022, the show wasn’t televised at all for the first time since 2008 after the Hollywood Foreign Press Association became embroiled in several controversies, including ethical concerns over gifts and financial benefits that some of its members allegedly received.
Since then, the awards show has seemingly found its stride. This year’s Golden Globes are set to air this Sunday on CBS.
But now, with this new partnership, the Golden Globes appear to be inviting fresh scrutiny.
Polymarket was founded in 2020, just a couple of years after its main rival, Kalshi, launched in 2018. Both platforms have surged in popularity in recent years after correctly forecasting major events, including the 2024 presidential election and the New York City mayoral race.
Kalshi even partnered with CNN late last year, saying in a press release that its markets could help journalists “more easily surface credible information to their audiences about the real-time probabilities of future cultural and political events.”
But new levels of scrutiny on insider trading surfaced this month after an anonymous Polymarket account made more than $400,000 betting that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be ousted by the end of January. According to The Wall Street Journal, the account doubled down on those bets just hours before bombs reportedly fell over Caracas.
In response, U.S. House lawmakers introduced a bill today that would prohibit federal officials and their staff from buying prediction market contracts on outcomes tied to government policy when they have access to nonpublic information.
Fans of prediction markets repeat the phrase “insider trading is the point” like a mantra on social media. The basic idea is that prediction markets are more than a place to gamble. If insiders get in on the action, their willingness to place big bets on an event should function as a new form of newsgathering, the theory goes. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently explained this way of looking at prediction markets at the New York Times DealBook Summit. Armstrong said that he’s still making up his mind on whether insider trading is a good thing or a bad thing. He did say that if you want to preserve the integrity of the market, you shouldn’t have insider trading. “But if you’re actually optimizing it for a source of news, and what is really gonna happen in the world, you 100 percent want insider trading cuz that’s where you get real signal,” Armstrong said.
While both companies appear to discourage insider trading, at least publicly, Polymarket openly welcomes users to leverage their expertise on the market.
“If you’re an expert on a certain topic, Polymarket is your opportunity to profit from trading based on your knowledge, while improving the market’s accuracy,” the company’s user guide says.
Coplan has even gone on to say that the market is a good place to disclose information.
“What’s cool about Polymarket is that it creates this financial incentive for people to go and divulge the information to the market,” Coplan said at an Axios Business event, according to Business Insider.
Whether that approach creates tension with the Golden Globes’ credibility issues will become clearer on Sunday, especially if any surprise outcomes prove to be profitable.
Polymarket and the Golden Globes did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo.
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