While gambling is not technically illegal, it has always been heavily regulated. In my mind, the word gambling was synonymous with games of luck that were played only in a Las Vegas casino. So imagine my surprise when all of a sudden, ads for online betting services like Kalshi and FanDuel started making their way onto my screen. How can they do this, you might ask? Well, in their “About Section,” Kalshi claims to be regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which allows for the group to carry out its activities with legal protection. They also say that they give people the chance to participate in “trading on the outcome of future events,” which is most definitely very clever wording. I recognize that their business is legitimate; however, gambling is exploitative and has the potential to ruin someone’s life.
The introduction of these apps played a big part in getting the public to become more accepting of the practice. It also really shifted the professional sports community, impacting fans, players, managers and tons more. I mean, not too long ago, Shohei Ohtani from the Los Angeles Dodgers (and one of the highest-paid athletes in the history of professional sports) was in the headlines as a result of his interception getting caught for some shady behavior involving gambling and theft. And according to ESPN, since 2023 there have been more than five major gambling scandals per year involving professional and college sports. It’s sort of sad to watch while something that is meant to bring enjoyment to the masses gets torn apart by greed.
So, after I saw fans call for a boycott, I didn’t think that Scream 7 could get any worse. Imagine my surprise when they started releasing advertisements partnering with Kalshi! A thirty-second video with clips from the movie and flashing text that proposed questions and odds like “Will Sydney survive Scream 7?” and a giant green 54% percent. This is especially interesting given that half of the fun of the Scream franchise is guessing who will make it till the end and who the villain is, so tying that to actual betting does sort of make sense. However, that doesn’t mean it was a good idea or that it should become a common practice. And from what I saw, it wasn’t effective in getting people in theaters or getting them to place bets, if anything I saw that it resulted in more outrage and an even more impassioned call for a boycott.
Something that the advertisement did was get me to actually take a look around the Kalshi website for the first time. What I saw was a bit alarming. Not only was there a market for Scream 7, but there were tabs for films, the Oscars, music, Rotten Tomatoes scores, video games and even politics. The bets I saw were in the same vein as “Who will play Miles Morales in the MCU?” and “Will a new Fast & Furious film be officially announced this year?” It was so dystopian to see that there is a market for people looking to bet money on cinema and real-world events. I fear that the incorporation of betting will lead to an obsessive focus on numbers and potentially even influence the behavior of creatives and audiences. I havent recognize such an influence on the community thus far, but I do think it might be a cause for worry in the future.
While I wish there was a clear, organized plan for how to protect the arts their just isn’t. But as we move toward a future where arts funding continues to be cut and public support continues to decline, I think it’s important that we have these conversations and do our best to protect creatives and the arts in any way we can.
