Yahoo Finance Scraps Polymarket Prediction Market Relationship

Yahoo Finance, one of the most popular financial news websites, ended a prediction market partnership with Polymarket before the relationship turned a year old.

The investing and news site announced last week that it halted an arrangement in which it used Polymarket prediction market data for a dedicated hub on the website. That relationship ended in April, just six months after it started. Yahoo Finance confirmed the end of that agreement to Bloomberg, but noted Polymarket remains an advertising partner.

Yahoo, which is 90% controlled by Apollo Global Management — the operator of the Venetian on the Las Vegas Strip — did not get into details regarding why the Polymarket relationship ended.

Polymarket Still Has Financial Media Deals

Yahoo Finance is one of the most visited financial news websites in the world, implying it’s a blow to Polymarket that its prediction market hub was pulled, but the operator has other prominent financial media deals.

Prior to announcing the Yahoo Finance accord last November, Polymarket and one of its rivals unveiled deals with Google Finance.

In January, Polymarket and Dow Jones announced an agreement that paved the way for event contract data to appear on various Dow Jones sites, including The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones also owns Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily and MarketWatch, among other media properties.

Polymarket also has marketing deals with Major League Baseball (MLB), Major League Soccer (MLS), the NHL and UFC.

Media, Prediction Market Partnerships Not Going Anywhere

While the Polymarket/Yahoo Finance situation is one of the earliest examples of a severed relationship between a prediction market operator and a media entity, that doesn’t mean those “divorces” will permeate the two industries.

There’s widespread belief that old guard media companies are incentivized to feature event contract data on their sites or reference it in select publications as a way of better connecting with younger readers and viewers.

Then there are the financial implications, namely new revenue streams. Prediction market operators typically pay media companies to integrate their data while some outlets also earn referral commissions for driving new business to yes/no exchanges. At least one well-known cable network has a financial stake in a major prediction market operator.