The week ahead: Basketball, beach bodies, and ballots

Good afternoon, traders.

Mondays are rough for a lot of people. That’s why, instead of making today even more difficult by blabbering on about politics for 2000 words, we’ll be starting with sports and the return of Love Island. If for some reason you do love never-ending political talk, we’ll have a dash of politics for you at the end.

^{For informational purposes only. Not financial advice. See full disclaimer below. Kalshi is not affiliated with Love Island or the NBA.}

On Saturday night, San Antonio beat Oklahoma City in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. This means that New York will be traveling to San Antonio to face Victor Wembanyama for Game 1 of the Finals on Wednesday night. But before we get into the upcoming series, Saturday night’s game was important for 2 main reasons:

1 - A lot of people feel that Victor Wembanyama should have gotten the MVP that instead went to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of OKC. Wemby triumphing over SGA in the playoffs gives the “Wemby was robbed” crowd its cleanest talking point yet.

2 - If San Antonio wins, people think they’ll look like a future dynasty. There is a solid core of young players being built around an even younger superstar. Wemby is 22 years old, and being over the age of 28 means you’re on the older side of their roster.

With a dynasty requiring multiple titles over several years, one could fairly claim that this talk is a bit premature. After all, the Spurs would still have to win the upcoming series, which in no way will be easy. We would be remiss, though if we didn’t say that they look similar to the early Warriors before the rings.

Switching to ice, the Stanley Cup Finals are starting Tuesday with the Carolina Hurricanes hosting the Vegas Golden Knights. Despite coming off a sweep of the previously favored Colorado Avalanche, the Golden Knights are only trading at around 42% odds of winning the series. While sweeping the favorites gives a good momentum boost, the Hurricanes are also running on high after reaching the Final by beating the Montreal Canadiens in five games, making their playoff record 12-1. Despite both teams having serious wind entering the Stanley Cup Finals, what a win would actually mean for each team is very different:

Carolina Hurricanes: They are consistently one of the best teams in the regular season but when they make it to the playoffs, they often fall short of the Stanley Cup. But the steamrolling they have done in the playoffs this year shows a break in this cycle that they want to continue for the finals.

Vegas Knights: The Golden Knights entered the league less than 10 years ago but have already won a Stanley Cup, made the Finals multiple times, and just swept Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, and the rest of the Avalanche. If they win, they go from just a “new team getting lucky while expanding” to a defining NHL team of this era.

Now that we know what two sports we’ll be alternating between watching for the next week and a half, it’s time to talk about a simultaneously high-energy and even more brutal competition. 

Today, Love Island UK is premiering Series 13 with Maya Jama as the host, followed shortly by Love Island USA Series 8, premiering tomorrow. After Peacock said the series generated more than 18 billion minutes viewed, the top-performing series was renewed in the U.S., much to the expressed pleasure of millions.

Notice how we used the term “expressed” when referring to how people feel about the show's return. The reality is that while millions of people, mostly boyfriends, complain about being “forced” to watch reality drama dating TV shows, within minutes of watching, everyone becomes hooked. 

Traders are already making trades on who will win the season and who will be eliminated for both regional versions of the series. 

Regardless of whether you openly express your love for the show or pretend not to be interested, millions of people across the globe will be tuning in to see what happens when you put a ton of attractive influencers in a pressure cooker and record everything they do. 

With the less contentious news out of the way, let’s move on to the politics section of today’s newsletter. 

It used to be that after the presidential election, people didn’t really care too much about what was happening politically, especially in cities located hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from them. Unless some rogue politician said something absolutely ludicrous that broke the news or the media just wanted to build up or tear someone down, most people wouldn’t have even been able to name their neighboring state’s governor.

But nowadays, more local politicians are breaking onto the national stage for both saying ludicrously polarizing things and also because the media knows how hard it is to take your eyes off politics and enjoy life.

Instead of focusing on the mayoral race in L.A. as we did twice last week, we’re going to look at the primaries happening in the space between the coasts.

In Iowa, Sen. Joni Ernst and Gov. Kim Reynolds have left open seats in both the Senate and the Governor’s office. In the wake of both politicians' decisions to enjoy their lives and not seek reelection, there has been a surge of people on both sides of the aisle who all want in. But most of the news has been around what is happening with the GOP candidates.

In South Dakota, for example, where the main event is the Republican governor primary, an aptly named “GOP” civil war could be developing. While Dusty Johnson and Toby Doeden have close likelihoods according to traders on Kalshi, both seem to be polling just below the 35% cutoff required for avoiding a runoff.

Heading northeast to Maine, there are also odd things happening in the Senate and governor’s races. Generally, for individuals to vote in a primary, they have to be registered with the party whose primary they plan on participating in. However, in Maine, unenrolled voters can choose one party's primary without having to join that party, which some experts think could blur partisan turnout expectations.

The biggest story in the lobster state surrounds the Democratic U.S. Senate primary between Graham Platner and Janet Mills. Though Platner appears to have effectively cleared the field of Janet Mills after she suspended her campaign, he’s dealing with a whole host of issues outside of politics.

While a lot of people make bad decisions in their younger years, like getting bad tattoos or sending poorly thought-out texts, most of the time those poor decisions don’t end up with people accusing said tattoos of resembling Nazi symbols that you have to cover up and the texts don’t involve extramarital sexting. Unfortunately for Graham Platner, he’s dealing with both of those issues at the moment.

So as you can see, it’s getting spicy in local elections around America. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as these stories continue to hold. In the meantime, have a great week, traders.

Here’s a look at other events that are happening this week.

Follow Jack Kuveke at Jabroni Capital
Follow Kalshi on X: @Kalshi

^{The opinions and perspectives presented in this article belong solely to the author. This is not financial advice. Trading on Kalshi involves risk and may not be appropriate for all. Members risk losing their cost to enter any transaction, including fees. You should carefully consider whether trading on Kalshi is appropriate for you in light of your investment experience and financial resources. Any trading decisions you make are solely your responsibility and at your own risk. Information is provided for convenience only on an "AS IS" basis. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Kalshi is subject to U.S. regulatory oversight by the CFTC.}