Substack partners with Polymarket

Substack is adding a new kind of editor: a live betting market.

According to The Hill, the newsletter platform has announced a partnership with Polymarket, the crypto-based prediction market, pitching the idea that “journalism is better when it’s backed by live markets.” In practice, the deal aims to embed Polymarket odds and market links alongside Substack content, turning political and economic forecasts into tradeable propositions.

It’s an elegant product narrative—replace pundit certainty with probabilistic prices—but it also rewires incentives in ways traditional media never had to confront so directly. A columnist can now publish an argument and, in the same breath, point readers to a market where that argument’s conclusion is priced and tradeable. Editorials become measurable, and “engagement” gets a new metric: whether the market moved.

That’s not inherently bad. Prediction markets have a long track record of aggregating dispersed information better than panels of credentialed guessers. Decentralize truth-seeking, punish bullshit with losses, reward accuracy with profit.

But the moment you bolt a market onto publishing, you also import market pathologies into news distribution. Manipulation becomes a content strategy. A well-timed post, a coordinated buy, and a screenshot of the odds become a self-licking loop: “the market agrees with me” (because I just pushed it there). And unlike a newspaper correction, a market move can be monetized. The temptation isn’t just to be right; it’s to be tradable.

Then there’s insider information. Journalists routinely handle embargoed data, off-the-record tips, and pre-publication drafts. In a world where Substack writers can also direct audiences into a prediction market, the line between reporting and trading becomes less a bright ethical boundary than a Terms-of-Service checkbox. Even if Substack and Polymarket impose guardrails, the enforcement problem is structural: you can’t audit intent, and you can’t un-know what a source told you.

Regulators will notice. Prediction markets already sit in a regulatory uncanny valley—part finance, part gambling, part “information service.” The EU and UK have been expanding platform obligations and tightening rules on online financial promotion and consumer protection; a media product that nudges readers into speculative contracts is basically begging for a compliance regime. Large incumbents may survive that with lawyers and licenses. Independent writers—the supposed beneficiaries—will be the collateral damage.

Substack’s pitch is that markets discipline narratives. Once markets are embedded in media, narratives also discipline markets—especially when the narrative is written by someone who can profit from the price swing.