In brief – Hollywood studios and production companies are warning employees not to bet on prediction markets using insider knowledge, The Hollywood Reporter reported. – The rules bar bets on casting, release dates and earnings, and at least one company has set up an anonymous…
tline to report colleagues. – A Columbia law professor said bets on blockchain-based platforms can be “basically impossible” to trace if insiders hide their identities well. Hollywood studios and production companies have been quietly issuing guidelines barring employees from betting on prediction markets, entertainment industry trade paper The Hollywood Reporter reported on Thursday
The warnings prohibit staff from betting on events such as studio earnings, casting decisions and release dates, or passing information to friends and family so they can bet instead, according to the report. At least one company has reportedly set up a hotline for employees to anonymously report colleagues suspected of placing bets. The Hollywood Reporter’s own parent company, Penske Media, has also updated its employee handbook in recent weeks to ban bets on “award nominations, casting decisions, production timelines and release dates,” the outlet said.
The rules extend long-standing bans on insider trading in the stock market to platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, which let users bet on everything from who will be cast as the next James Bond to who will be voted off a reality show. “You now have, essentially, an explosion in the number of employers who have to think about insider trading rules from an ethical standpoint,” Joshua Mitts, a law professor at Columbia University who studies prediction markets, told the outlet. Enforcing those rules may be another matter. “With blockchain-based trading, it can be basically impossible if you know how to use a mixer correctly and know how to hide your identity behind multiple layers of intermediation,” Mitts said. Some bookmakers are already spooked.