
bye bye prediction markets? & everyone flocks to Clear
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Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.
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And I'm Toby Howell.
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Today, the airport chaos has been horrible for everyone except this one company.
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Then why is the US banning foreign made Wi Fi routers? It's Friday, March 27th. Let's ride.
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Good morning and Happy Friday. Toby successfully made it through airport security yesterday and is coming to us us live from Florida, which is sad because I won't be able to watch the college basketball games with you this weekend. Last Night's men's Sweet 16 games had a couple of epic finishes. And tonight should also be fascinating. In one of the matchups, St. John's is playing Duke. And here's a wild stat about that game. The Duke men have won five national championships, and in every one of those seasons, they've defeated St. John's on their way to the title. So if Duke wins tonight, it does bode well to for the Blue Devils. Toby, what's the latest on the MBD bracket?
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Yeah, in our March Madness pool, our leader is still the guy with the name, the real Neil Fryman, which is. Maybe it is you at this point, Neal. I don't know. He might go wire to wire. At this point, my own bracket has inched its way up to 28th place. Thank you, Illinois. My women's bracket, though, has plummeted. Unfortunately, that MBD pool is still being laid, is being led by Payne's picks. So shout out Payne. But we all pale in comparison to 8th grader Otto Schellenhammer. He is 14 years old and he still has a perfect women's bracket. He has started out 48 and oh, and has Texas winning it all, which I do as well. So I'm. I hope I'm not a jinx. Still, the AP pointed out that Schellenheimer has a long way to go. The best start in the ESPN women's competition ever is 57 correct picks in a row, which actually happened last year. So good luck to Otto. Good luck to the real Neil Freyman and Payne's picks. And you know what? Good luck to.
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And now a word from our sponsor at LinkedIn ads. Toby, do you ever think you've seen a billion of something all at once?
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Yes, I have taken a lot of selfies.
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I think you're severely underestimating how much is in a billion. For example, LinkedIn ads has a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers. That is a lot.
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You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, company revenue so you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience.
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Plus LinkedIn Ads generates the highest B2B that's business to business RO of all online ad networks.
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Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com/nbd. That's LinkedIn.com MBD terms and conditions may apply. If you are so over hearing your unemployed friend talk about prediction markets, Congress is with you. Multiple bills are filtering out of the Senate and the House proposing different methods of cracking down on an industry that many think is more akin to gambling than events based contract. A new bill called the Stop Corrupt Bets act would ban contracts on elections, sports, government actions and military moves. That comes on the heels of a bipartisan bill coming out of the Senate on Monday that would ban any prediction contract that resembles a sports bet or casino style game. And it goes along with the Predict act from the House that seeks to explicitly ban members of Congress, the President and high ranking officials from trading in certain prediction markets. Now it's not often that you have bipartisan support for anything these days, but after some suspicious activity around the Maduro raids and Iranian war, Congress is mobilizing. The platforms themselves are obviously against these measures and Kosi has pushed back, saying in a statement that prediction markets offer a fairer choice to consumers than sportsbooks, adding that we should let competition run its course instead of protecting monopolies. The bills themselves will face an uphill climb even if they make it to the President's desk. President Trump's appointed CFTC Chairman has shown support so far for the industry, while don Donald Trump Jr. Is a strategic adviser to both Kalshee and Polymarket. Neil, there are a lot of ways you can attack this industry right now, from insider trading allegations to the fact that many see them as unlicensed sportsbooks operating under a legal loophole. Feels like there's a concerted push right now to rein them in.
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Yeah, the heat is totally being cranked up. There are multiple layers to this backlash. Shrek would be Very proud. On the one hand you have states saying, hey, you're offering what is essentially sports betting in our state, but we haven't legalized sports betting. UK, you can't do that. 19 states still haven't allowed sports betting since that big supreme court decision in 2018. But you can use Kalshee to wager on sports there and also polymarket. And then increasingly you have this tsunami of federal bills. Three this week alone, three were released, which basically argue prediction markets are destroying democracy in the fabric of our society by being rife with insider trading and allowing Americans to wager on literally anything that ever happens which is ruining their lives. So the heat is being turned up.
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I think the two vectors of attack, as I kind of call them, were states getting mad about sportsbooks, but then also people getting mad that maybe insiders within Congress or insiders within the government apparatus are trading off of information that is, you know, not materially available to other people. Let's, let's go back to the loophole that people are describing that allows them to offer, you know, contracts based on sports. Sportsbooks are regulated by the states. Prediction markets are monitored federally by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the cftc, because technically what is happening is an events based swap, not a bet. Again, that is a legal difference. It's essentially the same exact process, which is why sportsbooks are mad and sports is where all the money is on these platforms, no matter what Kalsheet or Polymarket say about what they offer. Like you can trade on anything. Most people are trading on sports. Cassio reported that 90% of its trading volume during the 2025 NFL season was on a sports. Sports was the most traded category on polymarket all of last year. If you just look at March Madness alone, they have seen their volumes spike to over $2.67 billion on Kalshi alone. It is definitely a platform that is being used primarily to bet on sports, which is why sportsbooks and states are mad.
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Right. So there's this turf war that's going on between the states and the federal government, but there' also this more moral backlash to gambling more broadly, which is not just focused on polymarket and couch, but also DraftKings FanDuel in our culture of just literally gambling on everything. Recently, Major League Baseball signed a deal with polymarket and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, the representative from New York, had this tweet that went absolutely viral, quote tweet, quote, posting this particular deal between MLB and polymarket saying pervasive, pervasive gambling is not good for society. It turns life into a casino, traps people in an addiction and debt, surges domestic violence, and fosters manipulation. What was interesting about that particular post is that a bunch of conservative people also said I don't agree with AOC on literally anything, but I agree with her here. So there does seem to be a groundswell of support to reining these companies in. Not just the prediction markets, but also DraftKings and FanDuel and this culture that America has developed in recent years of gambling on sports and everything else.
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I have one more anecdote that just speaks to exactly what you talked about. What are sportsbooks up to these days? DraftKings just introduced a way to gamble on hundreds of pitches, outcomes from old MLB games. So literally, you open the app, it's called DK Replay. It looks like an arcade game and you have 15 seconds to bet on a simulated pitch being a ball or a strike or in play. There's no game that you're watching. They've just stripped away any, you know, pretenses of actually enjoying the sport. Now you just see an animated pitcher in an animated strike box strike zone, and you have to guess if what the ball is going to do based off of old pitcher versus batter matchup. So it's literally exactly what you're talking about. It is the financialization, the gambling epidemic, if you want to call it that, is just absolutely encapsulated by the fact that we're betting on old baseball games at this point.
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So we're seeing prediction markets get more in the hot seat. But who knows whether anything will happen. As you said earlier, it's going to be an uphill climb because they still enjoy support from the the top echelons of the Trump administration. Miami is the new San Francisco. That is the conclusion drawn by economist Jed Koko after new census data released yesterday showed people are leaving Vice City like it was SF during COVID In the year through last June, 114,000 people left the Miami area for other parts of the country, the highest outmigration rate of all large American metros. But Miami isn't alone. A number of the largest US Metropolitan areas are shrinking, the census revealed, largely the result of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. New immigrants often come to large cities where there are existing networks and plentiful jobs. Without that influx, these urban areas are having trouble holding on to their populations, which sustain their economies. Los Angeles is another city that's losing people. Last year through June, the L a region gained 38,500 people in net immigration but lost a whole lot more, 131,000 to other American cities. San Diego County's population also fell by about 5,300 people. And new York City shrank for the first time in three years. This is the most comprehensive so far on how the immigration curbs are impacting the country's demographics. From a previous census release, we already knew that the US population in total grew by a measly 0.5%. The data out yesterday drilled down into the county and metro level to reveal which areas were gaining people and which are shrinking. And most are shrinking.
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Are you sure about that, Neal? Only 83 of the nation's 387 metro areas shrank. That is up from 52 the prior year. In about 75% of the all counties, overall population growth either slowed or turned negative. That means only 25, a quarter of the counties in the United states are growing. Four in 10 U.S. counties shrank last year. So you are absolutely right. The great shrinkage is upon us right now. And it's not just affecting big metro areas. To the piece called out too, that immigration is leaving a mark on smaller metro areas, of course, along the southern border. So it really is counties, big and small. We will dive into the only places that are growing, which I think many can assume are in the South. But right now, a lot of, you know, the big population centers are absolutely shrinking.
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Okay, so let's go to that good segment. I say, yeah, if I say you set me up. Where is growing in the United States? Which populations, which areas are seeing more people? And that is mostly in the South. Among counties with populations of at least 20,000 people, nine of the 10 fastest growing were in the South. I guess not Miami, which you can say, you can debate whether that that's the south or not. But the cities that are growing at four times the national rate or more are places like Austin, Texas, Raleigh, North Carolina, Ocala, Florida, Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, North Carolina, and then others that really aren't in the south but are more in the mountain West, Boise, Idaho and St. George, Utah. So they're bucking the trend. But overall, this, this, these curbs on immigration are really denting the population growth. And even for most large cities, they're sending their populations downward.
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And how do you grow a population? There's really only three ways. One, there domestic migration, which is when you move from, you know, I move from New York to L. A There's international migration where you move from another country into the United States or you can have more births than deaths. We have talked a lot about how the birth rate is falling that doesn't look to be reversing any time soon. So you can't necessarily rely on growth from that leg of the stool. Then you have less people kind of moving into these big population centers in general or they're just moving to, you know, a little bit smaller versions of large population centers like in Texas. And then of course, obviously policy impacts international immigration as well. So that is a very wobbly three legged stool, which I actually don't even think is physically possible. Even if legs are different sizes, it's not wobbly. But in this metaphor, you are looking at a very wobbly stool.
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Right. Well, here's the thing. The United States has always had this immigration cushion. We've talked a lot about demographic crisis facing places in East Asia like South Korea where deaths are outnumbering bursts and are not having enough babies to replace their population. But they don't have the IMM United States has always had. People have always flocked to the United States from other countries and now it looks like that is drying up and we're relying more on people having more, more babies as opposed to dying. And that is not doing well in the United States. So it's something that demographers are going to be watching closely. Welcome to Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week, the segment where Toby and I pick one stock that's blooming like a cherry blossom and another that's wilting like an uncared for houseplant. I won the pre show hopscotch competition, so I get to go first. And my Stock of the Week is Clear. Because when chaos reigns at airports, Clear is the beneficiary. Shares in the company have jumped more than 60% over the last month and are up 13% this week alone as more travelers buy memberships to avoid dystopian security lines at TSA checkpoints. For more than 40 days now, the Department of Homeland Security has not been funded, leading TSA agents to call out of work because they're not being paid. This airport mayhem has been a huge windfall for Clear's aviation business, which whisked travelers through security using biometric scans, a service it offers for more than $200 per year. Since the beginning of March, passengers have downloaded the clear app 289,000 times, triple the number from a year ago, according to the Wall Street Journal. Not a few of them are signing up for Clear on the spot in the terminal, anxious that they'll miss their flight if they continue to languish in the Standard line. While Clear's airport service still brings in most of the company's revenue. Investors are also excited by Clear's expansion into new areas like its ID verification platform for businesses that brought in record bookings last quarter. It's also making a big push into health care, striking a couple of deals with health companies to streamline patient check ins. Toby clears pitch is indeed crystal Clear. Pay us and you'll wait less. And it's pretty compelling in this age of long lines everywhere.
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I really do think that the reason why we saw the stock do the jump that it did this week is not because, you know, very long lines were appearing at airports. That definitely exemplifies, you know, the story that we're trying to tell. But it really was this expansion beyond airport security that got investors so excited. I mean, integrating with Epic, one of the country's biggest, this medical record platform. I didn't even know they had a health care business to begin with. They signed a contract with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. So I do think that the diversification story beyond just long airport lines and people, you know, jumping out of line to go sign up on the spot is why we saw the stock do what it did.
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Yeah, no, that the only company that's doing well during these chaotic times at airports, rental car companies are absolutely crushing it right now. Hertz stock rose 8.6% on Thursday. Avis had its biggest one day gain since June, up 17%. So people are turning to rental cars instead of wanting to wait in line at these airports. It looks like I do have some good news. Looks like this national nightmare might be coming to an end and perhaps this Clear stock rally as well. Overnight, Senate Republicans, Democrats agreed to fund most of Department of the Department of Homeland Security, including tsa. They're leaving out immigration currently, but they are. The Senate did pass a bill to fund dhs, including tsa, because right now TSA agents today are going to miss their second full, full paycheck. The earlier this week, TSA director came on and said, these are the longest wait times in history. So you're not matching it. These are the longest wait times in history. 480 agents have already left this particular workforce to look for other jobs. So it looks like the House will take this up today and hopefully President Trump will sign this soon so airports can turn back to normal or whatever normal was before this.
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I made my flight and I didn't even have to chat and cut to do it. So that's the good news, too. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with Dog the Week right after this.
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Well I asked our producer to slap me across the face as hard as they can or drink coffee.
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my dog of the week is your WI fi router because it's going to be really hard to get a new one if your roommate accidentally mistakes it for the toilet after a night out. Speaking from experience there, this week the FCC ordered a ban on the import of any new models of foreign produced wireless routers, calling them an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States. Now you don't need to go ripping out any cords if you have any. A foreign made router right now you can keep using it, but it's going to make shopping for A new non urine filled router, a major headache since the ban is in place regardless of the nationality of the parent company. Even if you're buying from a US company like Cisco, if the routers are made outside the US banned. The idea behind such a wide sweeping crackdown is that the same piece of hardware that brings you an episode of Love is Blind is also a perfect vector for for cybercriminals. Recent attacks on American communications, energy, water and transportation infrastructure all involved routers produced abroad. But Uncle Sam slamming the door on foreign routers is going to seriously disrupt a market that doesn't have the domestic producers to pick up the slack TP link. Amazon, Google and others all build their routers overseas and will need time to set up or expand their manufacturing presences in the US. Now this is pretty on brand for the us. Smartphones and drones from Chinese companies have been greeted with similar restrictions. But routers are a different story because of how ubiquitous they are and how few domestic options are available.
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All right, that is some Toby lore that I'm not sure we needed to hear. But yes, it's been a total freak out because it's like detonating a nuke on the consumer market. Basically no routers that anyone buys, that you buy, that I buy, that anyone has in their homes are made in the United States. And I think the point to emphasize here is that it can be made by an American company like like Cisco or Starlink, but if it's made abroad, you know the future versions won't be available to buy on the consumer market. I think that's another point to emphasize. The one you have now is perfectly fine. You have to switch it out. And if a product is currently available in the United States, it's also fine. It's basically targeting any future device that is made abroad. And the way they're justifying this, the United States government issued this document saying that routers have been targeted in previous hacks. They name a couple of them, Salt Typhoon and Flax Typhoon are a few in the past few years where China backed espionage groups hacked into routers and other telecom systems. And at least in the Flax Typhoon 1 they said that 126,000 devices in the United States, including thousands more around the world, were infiltrated by these China backed groups.
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The question is, are US made routers safer? And the answer is not inherently, because a router's vulnerability to attacks doesn't really depend on where the exact components are manufactured standard. It really depends more on its cybersecurity protocol. So Just making a, just having a Made in USA sticker on a router doesn't inherently make it safer for national security concerns. That is one thing that a lot of industry watchers were we're pointing out. If you're looking for some bright spots in this dog of the week segment, Netgear stock actually rose this week because it is a US Company and some of its routers are made outside of China. So, so investors are saying, hey, maybe that is going to give it a competitive edge in this new router landscape. And then you mentioned Starlink. Starlink does make some of their routers inside the U.S. they also make some in Vietnam. So Starlink could be a winner as well because some of its routers are actually assembled in Texas.
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Yeah, it's going to happen. Now it looks like all these companies are going to file for exemptions because the United States government also will allow exemptions. We saw this with what happened happened with drones earlier. I think it was in December. They, the U.S. government did something very similar with foreign made drones. And then all of these companies applied for exemptions and a couple of them were actually granted exemptions. That's one of the reasons that Netgear stock is going crazy, is because they think there's going to be an exemption. And critics of this policy, and there are many, say this looks a lot like a shakedown, like we've seen from the United States government during the Trump administration. Like, remember when they banned Nvidia from selling AI chips to China? Said it was all about national security and all of a sudden it was actually okay unless Nvidia pays 25% of the proceeds to the United States government. So they think that they're so the critics of this policy saying we're going to see something very similar. All these exemptions that are going to come perhaps will come with some sort of payment or gift to the Trump administration to make sure that they can sell in the United States. But yeah, as a consumer, this is definitely something to watch. We all buy routers and need them to have fun at home. Let's run to the finish with some final headlines. First round is on your banker friend at happy hour. The average Wall street bonus came to A record record $246,900 last year, up 6% from 2024, according to the New York State Comptroller. The total bonus pool came to $49.2 billion, a 9% jump from the year before and also a record. Wall street has been living large thanks to volatile markets and a resurgence in dealmaking following Trump's inauguration. But one thing to note, bonus on Wall street doesn't really mean bonus the way the rest of us use it. In 2024, for instance, bonuses account funded for almost half of the average banker's total compensation, fluctuating year to year to reflect the company's performance. And banks are doing really well at the moment. Wall street profits rose more than 30% last year to $65.1 billion.
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Yeah, they really have their trading desks to think as well, because they brought in a record $134 billion in trading revenue across the industry last year. And to be fair, it was a pretty good year in the market. S&P 500 rose near nearly 18% in 2025. So that is where the lion's share of those elevated profits came for. The one other angle that is often talked about when we are discussing, you know, increases of bonuses on Wall street is it is a major driver of New York City's economy. Like, again, most people say, like, oh, wow, you are, you know, lauding these big bonuses. But it does drive 19% of New York State's tax revenue between 2024 and 2025. So if the bonuses are bigger, that means tax revenue is going up as well.
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Yeah. People in New York City, City hall, and in Albany watch this every year because it just depends, because they have to build their budget entirely around it. Almost 20% of their total tax revenue. Okay. Netflix is raising its prices again after this latest price hike, the second in less than two years. Netflix's cheapest ad supported tier will cost 899, up from 799 previously. The standard plan is going up by $2 to 1999amonth, and the premium will now cost you 2699 from 2499 back in January 2025. Netflix also raised prices on a similar scale. Netflix wants to bring in more revenue to pay for its expensive spending plans in areas like live sports. In total, it's planning to lay out more than $20 billion on entertainment this year. And the thing is, it sees no reason to stop raising prices because y' all don't cancel. Even after years of substantial price hikes, Netflix still has by far the lowest churn of any streaming platform. People just can't bear to live without it.
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The issue, too, is that Netflix kind of sets the bellwether for the entire streaming industry. So if they raise prices, a lot of other companies then feel like they have the permission to go ahead and raise prices as well. So when you see Netflix's price hike. That just means your entire streaming suite is going to get a little bit more expensive. And many were pointing out, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, that Netflix just got a $2.8 billion payout from Paramount for its failed Warner Brothers deal. Now they turn right around and raise prices. I don't think those two are related in any way necessarily. They probably had this price hike planned well before that. But optically it does not look good for Netflix. Finally, the 999 challenge where you ate nine hot dogs and drink nine beers in nine innings of baseball is supposed to be a physical and mental test of gastrointestinal fortitude. After all, that's a lot of beer in beef product entering the system. But what started as a social media challenge where you had to buy and consume all the fixings yourself has become a little corporatized. Six MLB clubs this year have rolled out their own version, selling all the items involved in the challenge and one fell swoop to endeavoring fans. But those same fans are calling out their clubs for serving up a watered down fraudulent version in Oracle Park. Out. In essence you are given one Coors tall boy that is supposed to add up to nine flight sized beers. And don't even get me started on the hot dogs. They are mini dogs and it's not cheap either. The 999 challenge will set you back 5499 Neal it's not just Oracle and the Giants that are being dragged. The Mets have a small box. The Phillies have a small box. Stringflation has come to the last bastion of American culture. Culture doing stupid drinking stunts at baseball games.
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Yeah, Americans do not like getting ripped off, especially at a baseball game where everything is already expensive. But here's the thing. I'm actually okay with this because I don't think I could do the standard version 999. So if I'm going to the baseball game, like I'm probably going to order that mini version because that's the only one that I can complete.
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People are now describing out the 9999 challenge where you eat nine of these baby boxes across nine as well. So that is far too many many dogs. But someone will pull it off. I do have to give a shout out to the Amarillo Sod Poodles which is a double A Diamondbacks affiliate. They are selling a 999 box with full size hot dogs and full size beer for $90. So if you want the real experience, go check out Amarillo Sod Poodles. Great.
B
By way the way do you think you could do it?
C
Absolutely. I think. I think four dogs would go down in the first inning and, like, the beers just kind of drink themselves as. That's just a baseball game. That's a normal baseball game for a lot of people. The last five dogs might be a little bit of a fight, but I think really loaded up early, and then you can make those last five dogs stretch out across the remaining eight innings. It sounds like we got to try it.
B
We got to try. We have six months of the baseball season left, so I will definitely, definitely try it with you. I don't think I'm going to get that far personally. Okay. That is all the time we have. Thanks for starting your morning with us. Have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend. If you'd like to reach us, send an email to Morning Brew daily at morning broadcom or DM us on Instagram @me. Daily Show. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our supervising producer. Raymond Lu is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham, and our associate producer is Olivia Lake. Hair and makeup is down bad after attempting 999, the real version. Devin Emery is our president, and our show is a production of Morning Brew.
C
Great show, Danielle. I wish you all well.
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Morning Brew Daily - March 27, 2026 Episode: Congress Wants to Ban Prediction Markets & Clear Scores from TSA Chaos Hosts: Neal Freyman & Toby Howell
This episode dives into:
The tone is witty, fast-paced, and sharply conversational, true to Morning Brew’s breezy yet informative style.
[03:03–08:49]
Legislative Pushback: Multiple bipartisan bills in Congress seek to crack down on prediction markets, sites that let users bet on real-world events—from politics to sports.
Industry Defense: Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket push back, arguing prediction markets increase consumer choice and shouldn’t be stifled by regulation.
Bipartisan Unusualness: The hosts note how rare it is to see such bipartisan support, a sign of deep concern after recent suspicious trading activity.
Legal and Regulatory Grey Areas:
Where the Bets Go: Despite claims about diversified offerings, most trading volume is in sports betting, not politics or news.
State vs Federal 'Turf War': Several states oppose these platforms, especially in regions where sports betting isn’t legalized.
Gambling Backlash:
Evolving Offerings: DraftKings introduces betting on retroactively simulated outcomes—no live game needed—illustrating the detachment from actual sports.
Outlook: While the feds are ramping up their response, support from the Trump administration leaves the industry’s future uncertain.
[08:49–12:51]
Census Data Shock: New data shows cities like Miami ("the new San Francisco"), Los Angeles, San Diego, and NYC are losing residents at record rates.
Drivers of Shrinkage:
The Trump administration’s immigration clampdown is largely cited; new immigrants traditionally replenish urban populations.
Domestic migration and declining birth rates also factor in.
Quote: "The United States has always had this immigration cushion... People have always flocked to the US from other countries, and now it looks like that is drying up." — Neal [12:51]
Who’s Growing?: The South and parts of the Mountain West (Austin, Raleigh, Boise, St. George) buck the trend, experiencing population booms.
Structural Concerns: The hosts compare US population growth mechanisms to a "wobbly three-legged stool"—births, internal migration, and international arrivals—all currently unstable.
[13:20–15:23]
Why’s Clear Surging?: Clear has gained 60% in share price this month amid record-long TSA lines, with sign-ups surging as travelers seek to skip chaos.
Business Model Evolution: Clear expands from airports into hospital check-ins (Epic partnership) and business identity verification.
Context: Ongoing Department of Homeland Security funding issues led hundreds of TSA agents to quit; a funding deal is on the horizon, which may soon ease the airport gridlock.
[18:41–22:11]
FCC Moves to Ban Imported Foreign Routers:
The ban is on any newly imported router manufactured outside the US, regardless of brand.
Prompted by security concerns after hacks attributed to China-backed groups.
Quote: "This week the FCC ordered a ban on the import of any new models of foreign produced wireless routers, calling them an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States." — Toby [18:41]
Consumer Impact: Even US brands (e.g., Cisco, Google) overwhelmingly manufacture overseas. The ban targets future models, not those already in homes.
Industry Fallout:
Skepticism on Security: Made-in-USA does not automatically equal safer hardware—true cyber risk comes from software and security protocols, not manufacturing locale.
[22:11–28:43]
Wall St. Bonuses Hit Record: $246,900 average bonus, up 6% YOY, making up nearly half of bankers' pay. NYC and NYS budgets rely heavily on these payouts for tax revenue.
Netflix Again Raises Prices: The industry bellwether ups fees across all plans (e.g., standard to $19.99/mo, premium to $26.99), emboldening others to follow. User “stickiness” means churn stays low.
999 Hot Dog Challenge Gone Corporate: Multiple MLB teams are now selling ready-made “999 packs” (9 hot dogs, 9 beers, 9 innings), but fans call out portion “shrinkflation” (mini dogs, less beer, high price—$54.99).
Quote: "Stringflation has come to the last bastion of American culture. Doing stupid drinking stunts at baseball games." — Toby [27:03]
Outlier: Amarillo Sod Poodles offer a “real” version—full dogs/beers for $90.
Neal and Toby ponder if they could complete the real challenge—commit to attempt it during the season.
On Congressional Attitude:
“There are multiple layers to this backlash. Shrek would be very proud.” — Neal [04:53]
On The Shrinking US Population:
“So you are absolutely right. The great shrinkage is upon us right now.” — Toby [10:21]
On Clear’s Business Model:
“Pay us and you’ll wait less. And it’s pretty compelling in this age of long lines everywhere.” — Neal [14:21]
On Router Ban Fallout:
“Detonating a nuke on the consumer market. Basically no routers that anyone buys... are made in the United States.” — Neal [20:08]
On MLB “999” Challenge Corporatization:
“Stringflation has come to the last bastion of American culture. Doing stupid drinking stunts at baseball games.” — Toby [27:03]
Perfect for listeners who want an energetic yet comprehensive morning business briefing seasoned with sharp perspective and a dose of pop culture.