Google engineer made $1M on Polymarket
A Google engineer was charged with using inside information about user search data to make $1 million betting on Polymarket.
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Hot I.P.O Summer + What Is A.I. Doing to Math? + HatGPT
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Jun 5, 2026
Where this was said
HatGPT: The 'Bomb' Speaker and Survivor's Prediction Market Problem
At 1:06:36 · chapter starts 1:02:06
The final two HatGPT items bring levity before the closing. A United Airlines flight from Newark to Mallorca made an emergency turnaround 2 hours in after crew discovered a Bluetooth speaker owned by a 16-year-old named 'bomb' [1] — Kevin Roose "A United Airlines flight to Mallorca turned around 2 hours in after crew discovered a Bluetooth device named 'bomb' that no passenger would…" 1:02:06 . Casey notes — with some logic — that actual bombs are generally not discoverable Bluetooth devices advertising their nature. Then: Survivor host Jeff Probst has sounded the alarm about prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, which correctly forecast contestant Aubrey Bracco's win before the season even premiered, likely due to a crew leak. Casey riffs on his love of both Survivor and his skepticism of prediction markets, gives a shoutout to runner-up Sari Fields ('the greatest player to never win the game'), and connects the story to a broader theme: a Google engineer was charged with using insider knowledge of user search trends to make approximately $1 million on Polymarket. Kevin Roose concludes that increasingly, no corner of society is safe from prediction market corruption — and closes the hat.
United flight turned around over 'Bomb' speaker
A United Airlines flight from Newark to Mallorca turned around 2 hours into the flight because a 16-year-old's Bluetooth speaker was named 'bomb'.
The 'Bomb' Bluetooth Speaker That Turned Around a Transatlantic Flight
A United Airlines flight to Mallorca turned around 2 hours in after crew discovered a Bluetooth device named 'bomb' that no passenger would turn off. The device belonged to a 16-year-old. Casey Newton points out the real lesson: most actual bombs are not discoverable Bluetooth devices named 'bomb.'
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