Google reportedly started adding Polymarket data to News results

google-reportedly-started-adding-polymarket-data-to-news-results

Google reportedly started adding Polymarket data to News results

Google News has started showing Polymarket betting and odds alongside real stories, according to a report from Futurism. These seem to appear as large blocks containing links to numerous ways people can lose their money.

Bets tend to appear in the “For You” section of Google News, which is supposed to be tailored to a person’s particular interests. Futurism notes that the platform actually placed a Polymarket bet as its first news result when inquiring about the price of Bitcoin.

The post saw links to the prediction market all over Google News, including in searches. It appeared in queries regarding the Strait of Hormuz, which features a link allowing people to bet on the number of ships that would be allowed to pass the critical passage. The report even states that users were able to set the gaming platform as the source, which directs readers to a page with other Polymarket links.

There is a caveat here. I have not been able to personally confirm most of these results. This could indicate that Google has quietly made changes behind the scenes following Futurism initial report.

Complaints users on social networks indicate that Google started doing this in late March. However, one user noted as early as January that Polymarket results had started appearing in the news section of a traditional Google search. I was able to reproduce that one.

Lawrence Bonk/Google News

Engadget reached out to Google to see exactly what’s going on here and if it plans to continue showing Polymarket betting alongside actual news. The company made announce a partnership with Polymarket and Kalshi in November. This agreement indicated that the two gaming platforms would feed prediction data into Google’s financial platform, but said nothing on News.

It’s pretty easy to see why Polymarket would be attractive to Google’s algorithms. The platform generates huge numbers on constantly updated pages. This could trick these algorithms into thinking that the links lead to valuable news and not, you know, somewhere where betting on human misery.

Prediction markets like Polymarket give users the opportunity to bet on real-world outcomes, which include wars and other horrible things. This led to many scandalswhich include an incident in which an unknown Polymarket user won over $400,000 after “predicting” the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. just a few hours before the American troops invaded the country and took it away.

Polymarket hosted betting on the use of nuclear weapons in today’s global conflicts, which is rather frightening considering the possibility of government employees tipping the scales in their favor. After all, President Trump did it recently threaten to end an entire civilization.

This article was originally published on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/google-has-reportedly-started-to-add-polymarket-data-to-news-results-161708462.html?src=rss

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