A Los Angeles hospitality group that runs 25 bars, several of them within walking distance of Dodger Stadium, placed a $60,000 trade on the prediction market Kalshi betting against the Dodgers making it to the World Series. When the Dodgers lost the NLCS to the Milwaukee Brewers last week, that position paid off, returning almost twice the original stake and helping offset the bar revenue the group would have pocketed had the team kept playing deeper into October.
A Bet Built to Lose on the Field but Win on the Books
The unnamed hospitality group’s strategy, first detailed by Fortune, was never about rooting against the hometown team so much as protecting the bottom line. Fewer playoff games at Dodger Stadium means fewer customers packed into nearby bars, so the group used Kalshi to hedge against that exact scenario. When the Dodgers’ season ended short of the World Series, the stake helped the business make up for the revenue it would have gotten had the team played more playoff games, according to Fortune.
Kalshi platforms allow users worldwide to trade binary contracts on outcomes spanning politics, sports, economics and entertainment, per Central Oregon Daily. In this case, the bar group wasn’t gambling for fun; it was using the market the same way a business might buy an insurance policy, just structured around a sports outcome instead of a storm or a lawsuit.
Why Experts Are Calling It Bespoke Insurance
A Columbia law professor described the move as functionally quite similar to a form of bespoke insurance, the same report notes, pointing to a wider pattern of businesses turning to prediction markets to protect against risks that conventional financial products may not cover. That framing matters because it signals prediction markets are increasingly being treated less like novelty betting apps and more like financial tools companies can lean on when traditional insurance doesn’t fit the risk they’re trying to manage.
The numbers behind that shift are striking. Trading volume on prediction-market platforms doubled between May and July of this year, topping $58 billion on Kalshi and nearly $22 billion on Polymarket, according to Pew Research Center data cited by the same report. CBS News correspondent Laurie Perez covered the bets placed by the group against the Dodgers, noting the business doubled its money according to Kalshi.
Other Businesses Are Making the Same Play
The Los Angeles bar group isn’t alone in using sports outcomes as a financial hedge. A New York City bar called The Jeffrey placed a $5,000 bet on Kalshi in June that the then-underdog Knicks would win, and it collected a $13,500 payout, the Fortune report states. On a much larger scale, an unnamed third-party insurance company placed five trades on Kalshi last month that could pay out $3 million should Louisiana State University win this season’s national championship.
Those examples, paired with the Los Angeles bar group’s approach, point to a growing trend of businesses treating prediction markets as a financial safety net tied to the fortunes of local sports teams. For the Los Angeles group, additional playoff games could have meant more revenue, and some operators are now willing to bet against their own hometown squad just to make sure the math still works out either way.
