The News
The owner of a Manhattan bar bet $5,000 on Kalshi on Wednesday’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals to hedge is promise of free drinks with the Knicks win.
Prediction markets are getting useful.
Andrew Freedman, owner of The Jeffrey, bet $5,000 on Kalshi on the game, he told Semafor. If the Knicks win, the bet will pay out about $8,000 to offset about half of the bar tab he expects to cover. (Freedman’s day job is advising hedge funds as the co-managing partner of law firm Olshan. Hedge funds don’t really hedge anymore, but their lawyer does.)
After a similar promo during the Eastern Conference finals cost him $3,700 in free drinks, Kalshi reached out to suggest that he hedge his risk. Freedman said he’d dabbled in prediction markets as “emotional hedges” when his alma mater, the University of Michigan, played Ohio State, but this was his first foray into financial hedging.
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Liz’s view
I’ve written before that I think the real value of Kalshi and Polymarket is as clearinghouses for real economic risks, not as playgrounds for YOLO-ing retail investors. That the Knicks idea came from Kalshi — a spokesman confirmed the outreach — shows it thinks so, too.
“Who is this for?” I lamented last week on how prediction markets, which should be a way for businesses and investors to hedge economic risks, are instead demented casinos running on vibes. This week, they’re for The Jeffrey.
Another data point out this morning: Crypto firm Galaxy Digital, pending a crypto market-structure bill to pass Congress, said it made a $10 million wager on Kalshi.
Correction
A version of this story sent in the June 2, 2026 edition of Semafor Business misstated the mechanics of Freedman’s bet.