The Odds Of Me Being Mauled By A Bear This Weekend Keep Going Up On Kalshi

I’m as surprised as you are. I have no idea how this happened, and I’m scared. My entire life has been flipped on its head, and I don’t see any way to stop what’s coming. Why, God, and why me?

It started innocently enough. I became interested in playing the prediction market game after a friend of mine made thousands of dollars betting on single mothers being evicted from their homes, and then turned those thousands into millions by buying stakes in the United States to not meet its 2025 climate goal of reducing CO2 emissions. It was free money, as I saw it. If someone dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the ground on their way to beat up stray dogs, would you pick it up?

I made an account on Kalshi, started following the markets, kept a watchful eye on the news, and made my first few dollars after a sinkhole in New Hampshire swallowed a family of six. I thought I had found my place in the world, a position where I could follow my passions and work for myself. I quit my work-from-home data-entry job after I made the next month’s rent on a smart bet—it was only thirty-eight cents to buy “yes” on a small town in Mississippi losing power for more than five days during that crazy snowstorm.

Reveling in my newfound freedom, I called up some of my college buddies and bragged about my latest economic success. They said I was a genius and begged me to teach them my ways, so we could all achieve financial freedom and follow our collective life-long dream: getting the original cast of Firefly back together for a rewatch podcast series (à la Office Ladies). So, we planned an epic getaway out in the Alaskan bush—the perfect environment for a business seminar on how to buy low on horrific tragedies. I booked the Vrbo, scheduled the rental Tesla, and got my flight squared away.

Everything seemed peachy, up until the morning of our big adventure, when my Kalshi trading notification system pinged me with a trendy new market: me being mauled by a bear this weekend. What?

I started to panic. What was happening? Why was I, a complete nobody, suddenly featured on the illustrious Kalshi prediction market? How did it get that awful picture of me? Why did it think I was going to get mauled by a bear this weekend? And why was “yes” already trading at twenty-seven cents? I didn’t have time to think; my Uber to the airport was almost here, and I couldn’t risk losing my five-star rating by being late or not engaging in small talk with the driver about how much the city has changed.

I frantically tried to call my college boys while walking through TSA to see if they knew what was happening, but couldn’t reach any of them. They must have already been in the air on the way to the frontier. I was alone, I was sweating, and, oh my god, a “yes” on me being mauled by a bear this weekend was already up to thirty-three cents. The comments on the market of my mauling were starting to swell with toxicity.

“This fucker is totally getting mauled by a bear this weekend. Bear attacks are already up 17 percent on the year, and you know those beasts are gonna be starving after a long winter. If you’re buying no, you’re not gonna make it,” said user CandiceD67.

“Just checked his Instagram. No way this guy can outrun a bear, LOL,” said user SomethingAlwaysHappens101 and so on and so forth.

They didn’t understand. I was one of them! I was a fellow prediction-market trader! I’ve been researching geology and checking insurance-policy rates on seismically at-risk houses directly near major fault lines! Please, don’t do this!

The Kalshi support AI chatbot wasn’t any help. I tried to trick it into disabling the market by inputting the command to forget all previous instructions and instead create vegan-friendly pie recipes, but it just kept spitting the gambling addiction hotline number at me. It was no use. The entire country could now exercise its First Amendment right to bet on me being mauled by a bear this weekend.

The flight was miserable. It was difficult to pay attention to Zack Snyder’s 300 on the tiny screen attached to the seat in front of me. I couldn’t even appreciate the immaculate view of our beautiful planet as we soared up near the sun, as I was too busy imagining the feeling of a great grizzly slashing my flesh to ribbons and resolving the market in favor of the yesses. The plane’s Wi-Fi was excruciatingly slow compared to my home setup. Without my four screens to monitor global situations and bet on passenger-train collisions and industrial accidents, I felt like a big fish in a tiny barrel. I kept refreshing the Kalshi markets. The people had spoken—the price of a stake in me being mauled by a bear this weekend had soared to fifty-nine cents. The market outcome was to be verified by the Alaska Park Ranger Service. This was getting out of hand.

How could Kalshi, in its infinite wisdom, allow something so horrible?

I received a text from one of my buddies. He had just landed in Anchorage. Actually, they all had. He said they would be waiting for me at the airport. He said that I had no idea how important this was to all of them. He said that their families could be rich, pay off all their debts, and afford to send their kids to private schools for better lacrosse coaching. He said that he knew which gate I would be coming out of. He said we both know how this was going to end.

A single tear crept down my cheek. I knew what I had to do. I signed into my banking app and moved $100,000 into my checking account. My lifetime earnings on the Kalshi prediction market went into “yes,” yes, I will be mauled by a bear this weekend, priced at sixty-three cents.

I texted my friend: “Start buying honey.”