Copyright MSNBC
If it’s a day ending in “y,” you can expect a batch of fresh headlines highlighting Donald Trump and his family’s shameless acts of self-enrichment. And on Tuesday, the president’s media company, Trump Media and Technology Group, announced in a press release that “it will make prediction markets available on Truth Social through an exclusive arrangement with Crypto.com.” In other words, the president and his family are about to become some Americans’ virtual bookie, via a betting market that immediately poses some serious ethical questions before one has even gotten past the company’s PR. There’s no question the world of online betting has a seedy, criminal side. In fact, Trump’s administration highlighted this just last week when the Department of Justice announced a sprawling indictment linking multiple NBA figures to an online sports-betting scheme with ties to various Italian American mafias. Trump’s betting market, however, won’t be confined to sports. The platform intends to allow people to place bets on political matters — that he could directly influence as president. According to the press release: Truth Social users will be able to trade prediction contracts related to major events and milestones, such as political elections, interest and inflation rate changes, commodity prices on gold and crude oil, events across all major sports leagues, and more using the new product technology called ‘Truth Predict.’ Once this market is set up, there is an entirely plausible scenario in which Trump could announce new tariffs or cut government services — while people close to him wager, via the platform that he owns, on whether Trump will impose those tariffs or cut those services. It’s hardly a stretch to imagine the hypothetical.
