TLDR Studios and production companies are warning staff not to bet on prediction markets tied to their work. Banned bets include casting, studio earnings, release dates, and award nominations. A study found 210,000 suspicious bets earned $143 million on Polymarket over two years. Experts say blockchain-based bets can be “basically impossible” to trace. BetOnline briefly pulled its next James Bond market over fears of a leak.
Hollywood studios are telling staff to stay off prediction markets. The bigger question is whether those rules can be enforced, since experts say tracing bets to individual employees is very hard.
The Hollywood Reporter reported the new guidelines on November 5. Studios and production companies have been quietly warning employees not to bet on news tied to their jobs.
The warnings cover bets on studio earnings, casting decisions, and release dates. Employees are also barred from passing private information to friends or family so they can place bets.
At least one company has set up an anonymous hotline. Staff can use it to report coworkers they suspect of placing bets.
PMC, the parent company of The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and Deadline, also updated its handbook in recent weeks. It now bans betting on “award nominations, casting decisions, production timelines and release dates.”
The new rules build on long-standing bans on insider trading in the stock market. “You now have, essentially, an explosion in the number of employers who have to think about insider trading rules,” said Columbia Law School professor Joshua Mitts.
Hollywood Quietly Banning Prediction Market Betting on Studio News, Movie Release Dates (Exclusive) https://t.co/hsjPxPrYio
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) November 5, 2026
Why Enforcement Is Hard
Mitts studies prediction market trading. He says most informed trading is “very difficult, if not impossible, to detect.”
He pointed