Ben K. downloaded Kalshi in August after the betting app’s turquoise logo captured his attention in an ad aired while watching sports.
That was the start of a short but destructive cycle for the 21-year-old college student from Melville, who consistently blew nearly $2,000 paychecks on bets through apps that included prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket.
His bedroom looked like a kind of trading floor: three monitors and a television set up while he worked from home, with tabs related to his job tasks open beside tabs for Kalshi and Polymarket, while sports streamed in the background. When payday hit toward the end of the week, he’d refresh the Chase app over and over, often using paycheck-advance apps to get the…