Amanda Hirsch, host of the podcast “Not Skinny But Not Fat” and Hulu’s “Get Real,” apologized on Sunday, September 6, after backlash over a sponsored Polymarket post she published the day a mistrial was declared in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial.

Hirsch posted the now-deleted content on Friday, September 4, shortly after the mistrial was announced. It read: “On Polymarket, it was predicted the verdict would be ‘Not Guilty.’ Are you surprised? #Polymarketpartner,” as reported by Variety and People. Polymarket is an online platform that lets users wager on the outcomes of real-world events.

The reaction was immediate. Screenshots of the post circulated widely after Hirsch deleted it, and she disabled comments on both a subsequent Instagram Stories post and her apology, according to Variety.

The Apology

In a statement posted to her Instagram grid, Hirsch called the post “completely insensitive, wrong, and out of character for me,” adding: “I should have known better, and I feel sick that I didn’t see that in the moment.” 

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Hirsch, a mother, said she had been following the trial closely and lost objectivity. “I became so consumed by the trial that I completely lost perspective and didn’t stop to think about how grossly inappropriate it was to discuss something this tragic in that context,” she wrote. She went on to call the post “a terrible judgment call” and said deleting it did not undo the harm.

Hirsch had previously commented on the case in an August 21 Instagram video, writing that “what women go through during pregnancy and postpartum is INSANE mentally, physically, psychologically,” according to People.

The Case and the Wager

Clancy, 36, was charged in connection with the 2023 deaths of her three children. She did not dispute killing them but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, arguing she was suffering from postpartum psychosis. After nearly six weeks of testimony and seven days of deliberation, the jury split 11-1, and the judge declared a mistrial. Prosecutors can retry the case, with a hearing scheduled for September 29 to determine next steps, per People.

NewsNation reported that more than $161,000 had been wagered on Polymarket over the trial’s outcome ahead of the mistrial. The market was not available to U.S.-based users, only to those located outside the country. Betting on the outcome of court cases is illegal in the U.S. through standard sportsbooks and federally regulated exchanges, but prediction markets like Polymarket occupy what NewsNation described as “legally ambiguous” territory.

This is not the first friction between prediction markets and entertainment content. Variety noted that Polymarket and rival Kalshi drew criticism from “Survivor” host and showrunner Jeff Probst this spring after bettors on both platforms correctly forecast the show’s season 50 winner ahead of its broadcast. “They have figured out a way to capitalize on [the show],” Probst told Variety. “It doesn’t sit well with me as a human. I get it – they built a great business. They don’t care.”

Separately, Variety reported that new conspiracy theories emerged questioning whether the lone holdout juror in the Clancy case had also placed bets on the prediction markets tracking the trial’s outcome.

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