May 26, 2026
The winner of Survivor’s 50th season has been crowned, and went home with a check for $2 million. Aubry Bracco won the long-running wilderness survival reality show with eight jury votes. But for those keeping an eye on the online betting markets, it wasn’t a surprise.
Before the finale aired, users of the online prediction market platform Kalshi collectively priced Bracco’s chances to win the season at 98%, followed by Joe Hunter and Jonathan Young at 1% each. The “Survivor 50” finale aired on May 20, and just moments before it started, Kalshi sent users a push notification that read “Survivor S50 finale TONIGHT. Aubry’s at 97% — is the island already decided?”
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Online prediction markets let users bet on the outcomes of real-life events. The prices of bets are determined by user input and expressed as a number between 0% (won’t happen) and 100% (definitely will happen). It costs more to bet “yes” on an event that users deem more likely to happen. People who are not betting on events directly can still look at the odds of various events on Kalshi and interpret them as “market sentiment.” It’s sometimes treated almost as a replacement for consumer polling, although the people participating in these markets are not representative of the community as a whole.
When the “Survivor 50” market opened on Kalshi six weeks ahead of the season premiere on Feb. 25, before most people even knew the names of contestants, preliminary trades were forecasting Bracco to have a 61% chance of winning, Variety reported. By Jan. 28, she had jumped to 83%. Most concerningly, a few days after the season premiere, a Kalshi user bet $45,500 that Braco would win, eventually netting $4,500.
With the winner being accurately predicted before the first episode even aired, industry watchers are concerned about a potential leak from inside the production — aka, insider trading. And that’s not to mention that the publicization of these predictions makes for major spoilers for fans hoping to be surprised by the results.
It’s not just Survivor that has been spoiled by prediction markets. Other reality shows such as “Masked Singer” and “The Bachelorette” have been spoiled by prediction markets, according to Variety.
What Jeff Probst had to say
Jeff Probst has been hosting Survivor since its inception, and producing it since its seventh season in 2003. He’s not happy with how prediction markets impacted the finale.
Speaking to Variety, Probst said: “They have figured out a way to capitalize on [the show]. It doesn’t sit well with me as a human.”
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Survivor cast and crew members all have to sign agreements prohibiting them from using insider knowledge for gambling or monetary gain, and additional reminders were sent out during the release of Season 50, specifically citing Kalshi and Polymarket, according to Variety.
The magazine reports that Kalshi insists it has investigated the Survivor bets and believes that the users who predicted Bracco’s win were guided by online rumours on platforms like Reddit, not direct insider knowledge (although it’s possible that insiders are posting online).
“Clearly, if 90% of the people are voting for somebody, there’s a leak,” Probst said. “But to look at us, the producers, as though we have a problem, is the mirror pointing in the wrong direction.”
“And if I found out somebody on our show bet on this, they’d be fired.”
Back in March, Kalshi implemented new guardrails such as screening tools and whistleblower features aimed at preventing insider trading in politics and sports. But at this rate, they may need to crack down on the TV side of things, too.
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Em Norton is a Content Specialist at moneywise.com. They have been with the company since 2022.
