Jeff Probst has broken his silence on the controversial debate over betting sites like Kalshi and Polymarket spoiling the outcomes of reality TV shows, including Survivor.
“You’re telling me there’s a way I can make money by sharing information I have, and I might not ever get caught? Of course, people are going to do that,” the host and showrunner told Variety. “And if I found out somebody on our show bet on this, they’d be fired.”
The spoiler potential inherent in those sites came to light after Aubry Bracco was named the winner of Survivor 50 on May 20 following months of her consistently ranking at No. 1 on Kalshi and Polymarket. Since the results were announced live, the assumption among reality TV watchers is that someone on the Survivor staff — or within the cast — leaked that information. By the time the last episode aired, Kalshi’s Survivor market had reached a volume of $32.7 million, with Bracco dominating the odds at 97%.
“They have figured out a way to capitalize on [the show]. It doesn’t sit well with me as a human,” Probst added about companies like Kalshi and Polymarket, suggesting that they have to potential to gamify reality shows.
While the five-time Emmy winner acknowledged that betting sites have “built a great business,” he also believes that their owners ultimately “don’t care” about the most important aspect of reality viewing: honoring fans’ enjoyment. Instead, Probst believes that those outlets are increasingly “incentivizing people to lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead. … I’m not happy about it.”
When Gold Derby asked Bracco for her theory on why prediction markets correctly called her victory, she replied: “I would hope it’s because they see my resilience and know I can get through everything. But the betting sites were just a whole bizarre layer to play Survivor and the cultural moment we’re in. I’m like, 2026 is wild.”
Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana told Variety that the company is “looking at adding product features to prevent spoilers” in the future. “If the market volume on Survivor is any indication, this isn’t something that’s stopping people from caring about Survivor,” Diana noted.
Throughout the 50th season of Survivor, Gold Derby noticed that every Wednesday morning at approximately 6 a.m. PT, the castaway(s) who would be voted out later that night suddenly shot up in Kalshi’s odds. That’s the exact time that members of the press received their weekly screeners.
For example, on May 6 — the day that both Emily Flippen and Ozzy Lusth were eliminated — both players exploded in the predictions markets at 6 a.m. PT. Prior to that morning, Cirie Fields was forecasted to go home, but that all changed after the press screeners went out.
If certain members of the press or other viewers with access to weekly screeners are potentially to blame for spoiling who goes home each week, that still doesn’t explain why Aubry was the No. 1 pick to win Survivor 50 from before the season began. After all, the reading of the final votes were sealed until the live broadcast.
Speaking with Variety, Probst conceded that there may indeed be a “leak” within the Survivor camp, but suggested the problem is bigger than just one show.
“Clearly, if 90% of the people are voting for somebody, there’s a leak,” he said. “But to look at us, the producers, as though we have a problem, is the mirror pointing in the wrong direction. [Prediction market platforms] are the ones with the problem, not us. We went and made our show in a vacuum, and we keep it very tightly contained, but if you are foolish and naive enough to not think that somebody might leak it, that’s your problem.”
Reality contestants and crew members all sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) that prohibit them from spoiling the show, so they are tempting fate by trading on their knowledge. Going forward, Variety claims CBS is incorporating language about prediction markets in Survivor contracts, and presumably for their other competition programs, as well.
Insider trading has been an issue at Kalshi and Polymarket for a while now. In March, MrBeast’s company fired a video editor after Kalshi accused them of cheating. Reportedly, the user traded about $4,000 on markets related to MrBeast videos and had a “near-perfect” success rate. They turned out to be an employee of Beast Industries who had access to “non-public information.” Kalshi fined them $20,000 and alerted federal regulators.
This is actually an old problem dressed up in new tech. In 2011, a reality influencer was accused of offering money to contestants to break their NDAs, allegedly writing to one person, “I swear, this is the easiest money you’d ever make and you and I are the only two people that would know.” Producers of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette sued the person in question, and the parties arrived at a settlement in 2012.
What does this mean for Survivor going forward? Future seasons are not expected to have live finales, which means the winners will be crowned in Fiji months before they are revealed to audiences. Fans have their fingers crossed that the hundreds of crew members as well as the many castaways present will keep their lips sealed and resist the urge to become “snakes and rats.”
