Episode: 16 Air Date: July 2, 2026
Editor’s Note: This podcast reflects the opinions and perspectives of the host and guests and is not a product of our editorial staff, including Central Current’s editors and reporters. The program may be edited in post-production for length and clarity.
Sports books, online casinos, and prediction markets are collaborating with local newspapers across the United States to leverage their search rankings, reach new audiences, and share in the profits. Under the new model, award-winning outlets are publishing news articles featuring promo codes for readers to unlock gambling credits with online betting platforms like Kalshi, DraftKings, and others.
According to reporting by Maryland-based journalist Judd Legum, when a reader signs up, the newspaper receives a payout. Importantly, these are separate from traditional banner ads or popups and are usually not labeled as “sponsored content”. Instead, the publishers of this gambling content claim that it is part of their news production.
Legum identified and documented the growing scale of this phenomenon in his article, “Pulitzer-winning newsrooms are quietly publishing mountains of gambling slop”. He found that Advance Local has produced over 17,000 of these posts since 2022 across their many newspapers including The Oregonian, The Cleveland Plains Dealer, and The Star-Ledger. The newspaper with the highest number of these posts? Syracuse.com | The Post Standard, based in Syracuse. The Post-Standard published more than 5,800 of these promotional gambling articles between January 2022 and May 2026, many of which targeting residents of other states.
Legum joins host Maximilian Eyle on this episode of It’s Happening Here to discuss the growing relationship between gambling sites and news organizations across the country. He is the founder and author of the Substack newsletter Popular Information.
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