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In another sign that the depravity economy has no bottom, Forbes published a story about a Louisiana man that killed 8 children over the weekend containing a box that asked readers to predict whether Congress would do anything about gun control. Citation Needed author Molly White first spotted the box and shared it on Bluesky.
On Sunday morning 31-year old Shamar Elkins killed eight children ages one to fourteen, including seven of his own kids, in a rampage across three locations in Shreveport, Louisiana. Police shot Elkins to death. The Forbes story summarized these events, aggregated the Associated Press and New York Times stories about the killings, and then asked readers to predict whether or not Congress will pass stricter gun laws.
“The New York Times reported his family members said he had mental health problems and had expressed suicidal thoughts,” Forbes said. And then, below that, a “ForbesPredict” box:
“Congress WILL/ WON’T pass new gun safety legislation before 31st December 2026?” The box said then asked readers to “make your prediction.” A green checkmark and red X pulsed in place. Sliding your cursor over each changes the construction of the sentence.
Forbes launched ForbesPredict in January as part of an effort to reverse declining traffic from search engines and keep users on its website longer. It’s a prediction market like Kalshi or Polymarket, but unlike those sites there’s no money to be won. “AI is fundamentally changing how people access information, and that shift is already starkly visible in publisher's traffic,” Nina Gould, Forbes’ Chief Innovation Officer said in a press release announcing ForbesPredict. “Our response isn’t to chase scale, but to deepen engagement. ForbesPredict gives our audience a reason to return, participate and invest their thinking—not just consume headlines.”
ForbesPredict is an attempt to gamify news consumption and keep users scanning the website. Rather than cash, players earn tokens. “Tokens that have no cash value but matter within the ForbesPredict ecosystem as a signal of judgment over time. The tokens unlock greater status, gameplay advantages, and non-monetary rewards along the way,” Gould told Publishing Insider in an interview about the launch of ForbesPredict.
As a new user who had not signed into Forbes.com, I had 800 tokens. A story about the horrifying murder of children in Louisiana invited me to predict the legislative future of gun control. It cost 100 tokens for me to predict that Congress will pass new gun laws by the end of 2026, an outcome ForbesPredict gave an 18 percent chance of happening.
For 10 tokens I could get a “hint” about potential outcomes before spending 100 to make a prediction. The next question asked if Trump would pardon Ghislaine Maxwell before the end of his term. Paying 10 tokens for the hint revealed that ForbesPredict users say there’s a 61 percent chance Trump WILL pardon Maxwell. According to the hints this is because Trump said he’s allowed to do it. There’s a daily login bonus of 800 tokens for anyone willing to make an account.
Websites like Polymarket and Kalshi allow people to bet on the outcomes of world events including of war and death. ForbesPredict is an ersatz version of Polymarket where no money changes hands and users spend tokens for clout internally on Forbes. It’s hard for me to picture the person who is interested in prediction markets without real money visiting Forbes daily to read watered down reporting from the Associated Press and New York Times and then clicking a little boxy like they’re playing Candy Crush with the news cycle.
Forbes built ForbesPredict in partnership with a company called Axiom. It’s an attempt to solve the very real problem of AI devouring traffic and referrals. “AI platforms are answering the questions your journalism used to answer, permanently restructuring how information flows,” Axiom’s website said. “The quiet hope that this was a fluke. The data says otherwise. The trajectory is clear.”
The trajectory is, indeed, clear. AI does seem to be restructuring how information flows on the internet. Forbes is making a bet that it can keep its digital business afloat by serving as a low-stakes prediction market for news junkies. It’s offering gambling without the stakes and the payout and it’s offering news without first hand reporting or new information. It remains to be seen if this will help it retain readers and keep people on the site.
Forbes did not return 404 Media’s request for a comment.
