The Real Cost of Prediction Markets and Sports Betting: Threats Against the People Whose Actions Decide the Outcome

Most coverage of sports betting and prediction markets’ growth focuses on the bettors and the risks they take on, the money they can lose, the addiction concerns regulators are increasingly worried about.

There’s a second population absorbing real, sometimes serious consequences from this same boom, and it gets far less attention. The people whose real-world actions or reporting actually determine whether a bet pays out.

The scale of this is larger than isolated incidents

A recent survey of 100 Major League Baseball players across 23 teams, conducted by The Athletic, found that 81 had been personally confronted or contacted by an angry bettor over the outcome of a game.

This is a number so high that one player surveyed suggested there was little point ...