Tag Archives: Kalshi

So, Anything Happen While I Was Out?

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Well, today’s confluence of events — the Legislature desperately careening toward adjournment on the day of the filing deadline for major-party candidates — was inevitably going to produce a flurry of political happenings. Most, frankly, were no surprise. The major exception: House Speaker Jill Krowinski’s decision to bow out of the Legislature. More on that below, but let’s shoot through the rest of the headlines.

Phil Scott runs for a sixth term. Not a surprise at all. He’s got to be enjoying life more now than during the Democrats’ supermajority years, and he’s still got to see himself as the only person who can forestall Democratic hegemony. But if he wins and serves out his next term, he will set the all-time record for longest serving Vermont governor — displacing Howard Dean, whose record for vetoes was shattered by Scott long ago. And Scott has already surpassed Dean on one electoral score: Dean only ran for governor five times, and this is Scott’s sixth gubernatorial campaign. He’s already entered new territory on that score.

The prediction markets are finally warming a bit to #vtpoli, and becoming more on point. Kalshi’s “Vermont Governor Winner?” proposition has “Republican Party” at 86% and “Democratic Party” at only 7%, which seems about right. Wednesday morning, those odds were 73% Republican and 27% Democratic. One thing changed in the last 36 hours, and that was Scott formally announcing his candidacy. Also seems about right.

Pieciak declines. In other unsurprising news, Treasurer Mike Pieciak pissed on the dying embers of gubernatorial speculation by officially filing for re-election. His decision not to seek the corner office, he said, was due to a difficult past year in his personal life including the loss of both parents and separation from his husband. But it’s a disappointment for Democratic wishcasters who saw him as their best hope for beating the governor. (Despite his decision, Pieciak remains the second favorite on Kalshi to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, far behind Aly Richards and a skosh ahead of Amanda Janoo.)

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The Stupidity of Small Crowds

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I’ve got some meatier posts in the works, but they’re not quite ready for prime time (or whatever time you think this blog operates on, probably that weird half-hour Newfoundland thing), so in the meantime here’s a little diversion.

After I recently wrote about the oncoming scourge of gambling on everything prediction markets, the thought crossed my mind, Can you bet on Vermont stuff? Like politics, for example?

The answer is, of course you can. But the shape and size of the markets reinforces one of my core beliefs: Hardly anybody cares about Vermont politics. (I’ve been writing about it for almost 15 years, and I’m fully aware of the limited audience.) Which makes the prediction markets useless when it comes to crowdsourced insight. The available propositions have garnered so little interest that they have no predictive value whatsoever.

Take the above screenshot from Kalshi, one of the two major players in the barely-disguised gambling prediction market business. The two people getting the lion’s share of the action are extremely unlikely to run for governor: Attorney General Charity Clark and Treasurer “Smilin’ Mike” Pieciak. And holding down a distant third is House Speaker Jill Krowinski, who’s not even on the long lists of rumored candidates.

Not appearing at all: The only declared Democratic candidate, Amanda Janoo. It wouldn’t be the worst idea to lay down a few shekels on her because (so far) she’s the only one who’s actually, you know, running.

Even more telling about the lack of interest in #vtpoli: Only about $5,000 has been spent in Kalshi’s marketplace for this race. Compare that to the far more vibrant Kalshi propositions on UVM basketball. Catamount games routinely draw over a half million dollars in wagers predictions — 100 times more action than on the Democratic race for governor. A UVM/Maine game in February generated more than $3,000,000 in action.

Priorities, I know.

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The Gambling Industry Is Evolving at Warp Speed. Our Laws Have Fallen Behind.

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I’ve been pondering a post about the gambling industry since print refugee Derek Brouwer’s insightful story was posted on February 3 — if you missed it, please go back and read it. But things have escalated tremendously, and the situation is quite a bit worse than it seemed when Brouwer, reported on all the holes in Vermont’s oversight of legalized gambling.

It almost seems quaint to list the issues Brouwer identified, but let’s have a go.

  • The gambling industry is growing rapidly, up by nearly 20% in 2025 compared to its legalized debut in 2024.
  • Betting on football and basketball are flat, while the growth is in relatively obscure sports. Which by their obscurity, are more prone to fixing and other abuses. And gambling on sports you know nothing about is a big flashing indicator of addictive behavior.
  • “A complete picture of Vermonters’ sports betting habits is not available” because the regulatory agency “publishes very limited data.”
  • Vermont collected $7.2 million in taxes from the regulated industry — but spent less than 15% of that on programs aimed at problem gambling.

That’s all plenty bad. But the prediction markets are throwing a big ol’ bomb into Vermont’s patchwork oversight regime.

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