The Sweep, October 23 — Bank of America Says $28 Billion a Week, Smarkets Says "a Reckoning Is Coming," Kalshi Hires Danny McBride, the Pentagon Writes a Memo, and the Bears Hit a 58-Yarder

Friday, October 23. Bank of America's Julie Hoover told day two of the NEXTPredict conference in New York that prediction-market volume reached $28 billion in a week, "up nearly 30 times from just a year ago today," and an annualised $1.5 trillion, with Kalshi at 75 to 80 per cent of the US market and sports at about 80 per cent of volume. Her colleague Shaun Kelley listed three structural advantages over sportsbooks: national reach, no state gaming tax and customers aged 18 to 21. An hour earlier, The PM Pulse's Sam Schwartz had added the qualification that should go with any number like Hoover's: about 60 per cent of $109 billion in 30-day notional volume came from combos, and Kalshi's 74 per cent share falls to about 64 per cent without them. All three of Kelley's advantages depend on how the courts rule. None of them comes from a better product.

Friday, October 23. The best exchange of the conference came on the morning's jurisdiction panel. Bill Pascrell III told the room to expect no quick resolution and that state gaming regulators could be "in jeopardy of losing their jobs" if the Third Circuit is affirmed. Josh Sterling of Milbank, a former CFTC official, said, "We have the law on our side and we happen to be right about it," and, after Pascrell cited a convicted bettor, "I wouldn't take the word of a convicted felon for the view that stock trading and gambling are the same thing." To Covers, Sterling said a loss at the Supreme Court would not be "the end of the road for prediction markets." Limitless' CJ Hetherington summed up the day that afternoon: "All the law firms in this room are already winners."

Friday, October 23. The person most critical of prediction markets at a prediction-market conference was the chief executive of one that wants to enter the US. Smarkets' Jason Trost said his exchange has applied for DCM and DCO licences and "should be live shortly in the American market." He also said "All the money's in sports," that mention markets "don't serve the public good," and that "a reckoning is coming in this industry for good reason," citing his US competitors' marketing. ProphetX co-founder Jake Benzaquen, whose company had a contract turned away by the CFTC this week, predicted that "four to six" exchanges will survive. Trost's position is self-interested and still correct. A company that wants to compete on price has every reason to say the US leaders are winning on marketing.

Friday, October 23. Kalshi released a four-minute ad written by and starring Danny McBride as a weatherman, with Shane Gillis as his rival and Deep Roy as a psychic, Gizmodo reported. A shorter cut airs during tonight's World Series opener. McBride's statement says he has made "questionable trades on contracts for local weather, Costco hot dog prices and cricket." Some fans on Bluesky reacted badly. One wrote that McBride "becoming the thing he has spent years parodying is sad." The ad is a joke about non-sports contracts, running during a baseball game, from a company that gets about 65 per cent of its revenue from sports. That is the industry's marketing problem, and Trost had described it hours earlier.

Thursday, October 22. The AP reported a one-page memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, dated Tuesday, barring service members, intelligence staff and Defense Department civilians from using nonpublic information to trade on platforms including Polymarket and Kalshi. "Our enemies watch movements in these markets," it says, and: "A logistician with money riding on a strike date has an interest in that date." It follows the April charges against Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, accused of betting more than $32,500 on Nicolás Maduro's removal between December 30 and January 2. The logistician sentence is the most precise statement any official has made of the problem. The memo is also very late. Van Dyke was charged under existing law months before it was written, and a defence official told the AP the department had nothing to add beyond the memo.

Thursday, October 22. The Bears beat the Patriots 30-24 at Soldier Field to go 5-2. Caleb Williams went 22 of 33 for 308 yards and two touchdowns, his second straight 300-yard game. Drake Maye was 24 of 31 for 321 yards with two touchdown passes and a rushing score, but D'Marco Jackson intercepted him in the end zone in the second quarter. Late in the fourth quarter Cairo Santos made a career-long 58-yard field goal with under two minutes left for a nine-point lead. New England answered with Andy Borregales' 46-yarder, and Rome Odunze recovered the onside kick. Ben Johnson, on Cole Kmet's knee: "I don't think it looked very good." New England is 4-3. Maye outplayed Williams on efficiency, and the Patriots lost a game decided by six points on a turnover deep in Chicago territory.

Thursday, October 22. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's NBA-record run of 141 straight 20-point games ended at 17 points, in a 96-84 win over Denver, when he asked to come out with 1:43 left. We think he was right to, and the episode shows something player-prop prices leave out.

Thursday, October 22. The CFTC told Novig and ProphetX not to list first-points and scorigami contracts, per Front Office Sports. Our lead today is on the sentence that matters, and the second piece is on Kalshi's sector KPI markets, which launched on Friday.

Tonight, Friday, October 23. World Series Game 1: Nick Martinez for Tampa Bay against Jacob Misiorowski in Milwaukee, first pitch at 8:08 p.m. ET, per Sports Illustrated. The Rays plan Drew Rasmussen on five days' rest in Game 2 and Freddy Peralta in Game 3. Neither franchise has won a World Series.

What we are not running, and why

"Charles Barkley calls Shai Gilgeous-Alexander a bum after the streak ends." The quote appears in a fan-site headline. We found no clip, no broadcast transcript, and no mainstream outlet reporting it. All the Barkley material on Gilgeous-Alexander that searches returned was from 2025. We are not printing it.

"Polymarket ousts marketing chief Matthew Modabber after an internal probe." A newsletter attributes this to the New York Post. We could not find the Post story, and the only Modabber reporting we could read is the June lawsuit naming him. We may run this if it is confirmed.

"Kalshi has 93 per cent of US exchange volume, per Bank of America." That figure was circulating in a crypto aggregator's write-up of a social-media post. Hoover's on-stage figure, in NEXTPredict's own live blog, was 75 to 80 per cent. Both cannot be the same measure, and we printed the one we could source.

New York's "sportsbook-hopping" warning. Several Friday-dated results presented Chairman Brian O'Dwyer's demand for shared at-risk bettor data as new. He made it on October 9, when the commission voted 6-0 to advance its at-risk and AI-promotion rules, which we covered on October 11. It is two weeks old.

A Patriots–Bears line of "Bears minus 1.5." It came from a schedule page carrying a pre-season number. We did not find a closing line we could source, so this edition has no spread result.