Bet on football... or the S&P 500?

Good morning, Nutters 🌰 — hope your coffee’s strong, because today’s lineup is even stronger. From Wall Street dressing up as Vegas, to Google scoring a mega cloud win, and a British retail legend tripping over its own balance sheet… let’s crack the headlines.

🎲 Wall Street’s New Casino: Brokers & Bookies Blur the Line

Investing or gambling? Why not both.

Remember when your broker and your bookie were two different people? Yeah, about that… Those worlds are colliding fast.

• Prediction markets are exploding: Polymarket grew from $54M in early 2024 to over $1B/month by year-end, peaking at $2.63B during election mania.

• Robinhood ($HOOD) has already clocked 2B prediction contracts traded — and just rolled out NFL + college football markets.

• Interactive Brokers ($IBKR) jumped in too, with U.S. and Canada offerings.

But Vegas isn’t folding:

• FanDuel + CME Group teamed up to let users bet on stocks, oil, gold, crypto, GDP — all in simple yes/no wagers.

• DraftKings ($DKNG) filed for its own prediction market license.

👉 The big picture: With trading apps looking more like casinos and sports betting apps looking more like Wall Street, the line between “speculation” and “fun money” is vanishing. And younger traders? They’d rather bet on the S&P than grind a 9–5.

☁️ Alphabet Bags $10B Meta Cloud Deal

Big Tech’s hyperscale arms race just leveled up.

Alphabet ($GOOGL) shares ticked higher after news broke: Meta signed a six-year, $10B deal with Google Cloud.

• That’s one of Google Cloud’s biggest wins yet, and it puts them toe-to-toe with AWS and Azure.

• Meta’s spreading its bets as it pours $114–118B into AI capex this year — much of it on infrastructure to power Llama models + AI features across its apps.

• Google Cloud pulled $13.6B in revenue last quarter (up 32% YoY) and is finally showing operating leverage with $2.83B profit.

👉 Why it matters: This isn’t just about servers — it’s about locking in an “anchor tenant” that validates Google Cloud as a durable growth engine. Analysts may now bump up forecasts, and hyperscale AI spending still shows no chill.

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📰 Other Nuts You Should Crack

🥶 India, China & Russia cozy up on trade — The trio is advancing trilateral talks to counter U.S. tariffs. Think Cold War vibes, but instead of nukes it’s all about energy, supply chains, and financial sanctions.

📉 WHSmith’s £500M faceplant — A £30M accounting blunder in its North American arm wiped 40% off the stock of the 233-year-old British retailer. Deloitte’s been called in. Investors wonder if this is a one-off… or an unraveling.

💵 Anthropic eyes $170B valuation — The AI startup is raising $10B led by Iconiq Capital, doubling its target and inflating already sky-high AI valuations.

⛽ Gas vs. electric bills — U.S. homes spent $2.93K on gasoline vs. $1.86K on electricity in 2024. But electricity prices are rising, projected to hit 18¢/kWh next year, which could fuel political sparks.

🛒 Walmart ($WMT) misses on profits — Stock slipped 4% despite same-store sales growth, as legal + restructuring costs weighed on earnings. Bright side: Walmart still raised its sales outlook for 2026.

⚖️ Elon Musk in legal hot water (again) — A judge ruled Musk must face a lawsuit accusing him of running an illegal $1M giveaway during the 2024 presidential election.

💡What else are we reading and seeing?

• OpenAI plans to open its first India office in New Delhi later this year

• The golden age of social media is over, and smart brands are already moving on

• Japan’s top automakers say they won’t pass higher tariff costs on to U.S. consumers.

• Nvidia’s CEO met with TSMC in Taipei as talks continue over U.S. pressure on China chip operations.

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🌰 That’s a Wrap

Prediction markets are booming, clouds are raining billions, and even 200-year-old retailers can trip on their own shoelaces. Moral of the story? Whether it’s stocks, sports, or shopping, the line between winning big and losing it all is thinner than ever.

Thanks for cracking open Cash Nut with us today 🥜 — see you tomorrow with more markets, money, and mischief.