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Bobby Allyn

@bobbyallyn.bsky.social
24K followers 1.2K following 893 posts

Correspondent at @NPR covering tech. Now focusing on prediction markets. Signal: ballyn.77 Discord: bobby16663 Email: ballyn@npr.org

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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
And: Americans are more likely to have placed a bet at least once a week than having read a book in the past year, studies have shown.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Other stats that really capture the moment: In the last month, bettors wagered nearly $60 billion on the platform, according to data analytics site TickerTracker, compared to $2.8 billion last September — a year-over-year increase of more than 2,000%
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
full story: www.npr.org/2026/10/02/n...
npr.org
After bankruptcy, he was banned from sports betting sites. Then he discovered Kalshi
The dark side of the prediction market boom is becoming more clear: Experts say the sites have become go-to outlets for gambling addicts to relapse as the companies avoid state consumer protections.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
A clinician I spoke to called 15-minute crypto markets “a slot machine in your pocket”
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
He told me: “The odds flip so quickly. It’s such a rush. And when I’d lose, my brain just kept wanting to win it back. I never even traded Bitcoin or any crypto, but I just kept coming back to the rush of how unpredictable the markets were.”
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
What really got Thomas were Kalshi’s 15-minute crypto markets, where you can make a binary trade on whether Bitcoin will be above or below a certain number every 15 minutes. There were times he was betting 18 hours a day in these markets.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
just as they insist they are not a gambling operator. That means they don’t honor “self-exclusion” registries maintained by states like Pennsylvania. Mental health clinicians say that creates a loophole for people like Thomas.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Thomas represents dark side of the prediction market boom: Problem gamblers who relapse with Kalshi, which has blanketed TV, social media, sports stadiums, bus stations, trains, with ads trying to attract new traders…
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Which they eventually did. But not before he was more than $25,000 in the hole.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
More recently, he saw an ad for Kalshi offering a cash bonus. He got the app and couldn’t put it down. He’s now living with his mom and grandmother and taking loans from them to afford food and car insurance payments. “I have a gambling addiction” he wrote to Kalshi, begging for them to ban him.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Meet Thomas, a 35-year-old who got hooked to FanDuel and DraftKings in the pandemic, ended up $50,000 in the red. He filed for bankruptcy and signed up for a Pennsylvania registry that banned him from using betting apps.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Disliked: The creepy ai deepfake of Elon. The video game simulations. Asking Grok questions. Flirting with kooky conspiratorial ideas.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Liked: It didn’t feel like four hours. The breadth of what Gibney covers is impressive. He landed good interviews. He asks the right questions, even if they’re fundamentally unanswerable.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I went to a screening of Alex Gibney’s Elon doc and wrote a review. www.npr.org/2026/09/11/n...
npr.org
From DOGE to space lasers, Alex Gibney peels back the many layers of Elon Musk
In the Oscar-winning filmmaker's latest documentary, director Alex Gibney investigates the rise of Elon Musk and says what's behind Musk's success are distressing truths.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Liked: It didn’t feel like four hours. The breadth of what Gibney covers is impressive. He landed good interviews. He asks the right questions, even if they’re fundamentally unanswerable.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Ashley St. Clair said Musk's legal threats are "a joke" in a statement to NPR. "They are more likely to colonize Mars than win a defamation case against Alex Gibney," she said. "Alex Spiro is sending fairy dust letters with obtuse legalese."
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"It sounds like Musk doesn't like the documentary, so he wants to do whatever he can to shut it down and intimidate distributors. It would be a much more impoverished democracy if we weren't allowed to make documentaries about public figures that were critical of them." www.npr.org/2026/09/10/g...
npr.org
Elon Musk threatens to sue over Gibney documentary's "space lasers" claim
The tech billionaire's attorney has put documentarian Alex Gibney and his production company on legal notice, claiming the Oscar-winning director defamed Musk in his nearly four-hour documentary.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Note: This seems like a joke or parody but it is not.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Elon replied: “Same. The Japan meeting was pretty wild. They want me to be a sperm donor. No romance or anything, just sperm.”
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
In another text exchange I obtained from June 11, 2023, Ashley St. Claire wrote to Elon: “I had an incredible time with you last night. Hope the Japan meeting wasn’t too colorful 🤣🍄,” suggesting Elon had been on psychedelic mushrooms during the meetings.”
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Will say Gibney’s framing of texts felt conspiratorial. He dwelled on the 10,000 lasers moment with Ashley St Clair, and asked her what she thinks he meant by it, and really has viewer hang in that scene, giving impression that it was part of some nefarious dark plot, not the ramblings of a mad man
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Ashley: “I would ask more questions but will keep myself from getting deposed 🤣 Proud of you” Elon responds: “Wise 🤣”
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Elon wrote: “Lasers” from space Ashley responded: “Finally a focus on the Jewish vote” (my aside: a MTG joke) Elon: “I have over 10 thousand lasers in space right now”
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
the other texts between Elon and Ashley St Clair in the documentary which I’ve also reviewed are confounding. In Oct 2024, he wrote: “And tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix.” Ashley says: “👀 Who?” Elon says: “This is not something on the chessboard so they will be quite surprised”
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Surely there’s one way to find out: Ask Musk. When I suggested this, he didn’t reply.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I reached out to Musk lawyer Alex Spiro about the texts, and he wrote back: “Sounds like more nonsense” He elaborated: “Do I know whether these texts are real, a joke (sounds like one), or somrthing else. I dont and neither does npr” (typo his)
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I obtained the same texts Gibney showed. In one text, Musk writes: “WSJ has published three articles with no direct sources basically saying that I'm high all the time.” In another, Musk writes: “I mean, I’m high a little…sure 🤷‍♂️”
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I saw a screening of Alex Gibney’s Musk yesterday, and I enjoyed it (except for the creepy deepfake of Musk) Most of what’s covered has been well documented, but something that did stand out to me were texts Musk sent to Ashley St. Clair after the WSJ’s reporting on Musk’s recreational drug use.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I grew up with & still love all the 2000s B9 stuff, but Panic was prob my favorite of that era I’m also partial to Cold World since I grew up with those guys in rural Pennsylvania But Cro-Mags, YoT, Judge, Integrity never get old to me Among newer stuff End It from Baltimore are incredible
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Joan you should’ve told me you were gonna be wearing Fred Perry, I would’ve done the same. i have many of that same shirt from my sxe hc posi youth crew days!!
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
It's interesting that Dodd-Frank reforms after 2008 brought "swaps" under CFTC’s watch to close a loophole for risky black market investing. And now NJ says that closed loophole has become Kalshi's own loophole for avoiding state gambling laws.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
As the Lindsay Clancy jury deliberates anonymous bettors on Polymarket are wagering five-figure sums on what the verdict might be
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Focus of probe is whether this kind of betting is susceptible to manipulation. In response, Kalshi has taken down all mention markets for sports "until further notice"
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
NEW: The CFTC has launched a probe into prediction market "mention markets" as a category, where people bet millions on whether President Trump, sportscasters, executives on earning calls say a word or not. www.npr.org/2026/08/13/n...
npr.org
Feds probe 'mention markets' amid White House Kalshi controversy
Betting on what people say is becoming an increasingly popular category of prediction market sites. Now, federal officials have opened a probe examining whether those markets are a magnet for manipula...
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Reposted by Bobby Allyn
Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 11/08/2026
When Elon took over Twitter he told investors he'd triple ad revenue within 5 years. It's now been almost four years... and he's wiped out 2/3rds of the ad revenue (basically revealed in footnotes to SpaceX's earnings).
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Father of 12-year-old cancer patient on prediction markets introducing clinical trial betting: "What seemed to be missed in the CEO statements was the fact that there were going to be patients on the other side of these bets” www.npr.org/2026/08/07/n...
npr.org
Kalshi and Polymarket bets on clinical trials criticized as 'ghastly'
Researchers warn betting on clinical trials could incentivize insider trading and interfere with drug development. But Kalshi and Polymarket say they provide valuable information to patients.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Both Kalshi & Polymarket odds of El-Sayed winning were more than 90% and both sites "called" the race for El-Sayed, who won by less than 1 percentage point It's reminding me of Spencer Pratt's momentum on the sites & how prediction market traders over-index internet hype, which real voters do not
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
www.npr.org/2026/08/01/n...
npr.org
For sale: early access to Trump's Truth Social posts
The president's media company is offering investors early access to his Truth Social feed for up to $100,000 a month. Experts say the service may violate insider trading laws.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
This person wasn’t surprised 12 other major players in finance I reached out to about the service refused to talk, fearing they’d end up in Trump’s crosshairs.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
"It's insane. I can say for myself and 200 of my friends in finance, we're not getting anywhere near this. In another administration, this would be considered criminal.”
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Trump’s media company today began selling early access to the president’s posts on Truth Social for up to $100k a month to financial institutions. I talked to former SEC lawyers, who see the service as a violation of insider trading laws. And a Wall Street executive, who told me:
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
On Discord, Kalshi traders who had money on the line discussed ways of changing contract markets, like requiring that someone be photographed before a market is resolved. So far, Kalshi hasn’t announced any changes.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
This may seem ridiculous, because it is, but it shows how falsehoods and misinformation, whether intentional or not, can result in huge payouts, when a “source agency” reports something — there being no safeguard or backstop for false info is a huge structural vulnerability
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
After days of leaving the Brad Pitt situation unresolved, and lots of internal debate at Kalshi, they resolved the market to Y, citing the network affiliates who falsely said Pitt was there. Some $300k was lost from traders who bet Pitt wouldn’t be there, according to Kalshi API data.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
This sparked a huge debate among traders, who had millions of dollars on the line. On one side, “rulescucks,” or those who read contract terms hyper-literally, sometimes in spite of reality. On the other side were those who took the N position, who say, well, he never attended.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
The Kalshi market on who would attend (Y or N) resolved based on reporting from “source agencies,” including NBC and ABC, which had affiliate sites falsely report Pitt was there after the live announcer flubbed.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Example of a prediction market paying out for unreality: A live announcer mistook Matt Damon for Brad Pitt during the World Cup final, some outlets erroneously reported it, and a Kalshi attendance market resolved yes he attended, when he in fact was not there. Here’s why this happened:
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Kalshi's standoff with Wisconsin over election betting could be a preview of the next big prediction market fight. Election integrity experts fear situations like an election poll worker slowing the count or undercounting in order to cash in on a prediction market bet. www.npr.org/2026/07/27/n...
npr.org
Kalshi attacks a Wisconsin law banning election bets as 'voter suppression'
The spat between the leading prediction market company and a key battleground state could be a glimpse into the next major fight between states and the fast-growing industry.
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Bobby Allyn @bobbyallyn.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Wisconsin Elections Commission warning voters about using Kalshi and Polymarket ahead of midterms: “Voters who place bets on elections and then try to vote in that election may be subject to voter qualification … and could also result in a referral to the District Attorney”
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Reposted by Bobby Allyn
Jacob Kramer-Duffield @jaykaydee.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
This was a really great discussion, give it a listen!
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