With more than 8,400 subreddits going dark to protest Reddit’s decision to start charging some third-party apps for access to the company’s application programming interface (API), the “front page of the internet” is looking pretty threadbare this week.
That may improve, in some cases, late Tuesday and early Wednesday as the 48-hour protest draws to a close, but many popular subreddits—including r/music, with over 30 million subscribers—say they will stop operating “indefinitely” until the situation is resolved, noting that their moderators are unable to do their work with the tools on Reddit’s official app.
So now, an online gambling site is laying odds and taking wagers about what happens next. And according to the oddsmakers, at least, it doesn’t look good for Reddit.
BetUS.com has opened up novelty bets (for real money) on three Reddit-themed areas:
- Will the site reverse its planned API pricing change by the end of the month?
- Will the third-party Apollo app shut down by the end of June (as its founder has said will happen)?
- Will Reddit CEO Steve Huffman still be in charge by the end of the year?
The odds listed are American moneyline odds, which can be confusing to some people. As BetUS points out, “A negative number indicates the favorite and a positive number indicates the underdog. When betting on the favorite, the negative number will indicate how much you will have to risk to win $100.”
Regarding the API pricing, there really are no good odds. The moneyline bet, as of Tuesday afternoon, that Reddit would reverse its plans in the next 17 days is -130 (meaning you’d need to bet $130 for a $100 payout). People who bet against that occurring are looking at a moneyline of -110.
Reddit has already made a few concessions, notably making an exception for accessibility apps. But no others seem to be on the horizon. Reddit, in a statement Monday, said, “We’re not planning any changes to the API updates we’ve previously announced.”
