Kalshi Bans George Santos, Fines 3 Political Candidates
Prediction market Kalshi, a platform increasingly compared with regulated betting sites, has disclosed five new disciplinary actions, permanently banning former U.S. Representative George Santos and settling with three political candidates who traded on contracts tied to their own elections.
The exchange’s own regulatory notices, dated August 28, 2026, set out financial penalties ranging from $2,589.96 to $71,356 alongside suspensions of between one and five years.
According to Kalshi’s notice of settlement, Santos placed a series of large trades between February 2 and February 25, 2026, in markets tied to whether he would attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, then made public statements about his plans that Kalshi’s Compliance Department found were “false or misleading” and intended to move the price of the contracts he planned to buy.
The exchange said Santos profited $17,839.57 from the trades and found he violated multiple rules, including its market manipulation and insider trading provisions. Kalshi permanently suspended him from the platform and imposed a $71,356 penalty. The action follows a separate July settlement in which the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ordered Santos to disgorge profits and pay a civil penalty over the same trading, according to CNBC.
Three Candidates Fined For Betting On Their Own Races
Kalshi also settled with three candidates who bought contracts tied to their own races, in violation of a rule that bars anyone with direct influence over an event’s outcome from trading on it. California gubernatorial candidate Stephen Cloobeck received the largest penalty of the three, $31,770 and a three-year suspension, after Kalshi found he purchased approximately $10,000 worth of contracts tied to his candidacy.
Maine gubernatorial candidate Ben Midgley was fined $5,434.30, and North Carolina congressional candidate Laurie Buckhout was fined $2,589.96; both received three-year suspensions after buying less than $1,000 in contracts tied to their own campaigns. Kalshi said all three cooperated with its investigation.
Buckhout, the Republican nominee for North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, addressed the settlement directly. “I bet on myself. Literally,” she said, according to CNBC. “It was a dumb mistake, and as soon as I learned there was an issue, I worked to make it right. Safe to say my career as a Kalshi trader was short-lived.”
Part Of A Wider Enforcement Push
The batch of enforcement actions also included a settlement over improper account access, bringing the total to five disciplinary cases resolved on the same date. Kalshi’s self-regulatory notices are published on its own regulatory documents page, separate from any parallel CFTC action, and the exchange has used the same disclosure format for a series of insider-trading and market-manipulation cases since the start of 2026.
The Santos and candidate cases add to a wider run of enforcement activity around prediction markets this year. Last week, the CFTC separately ordered former White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez to pay about $172,000 in disgorgement and penalties over trades based on nonpublic information about Trump’s public schedule, a case Kalshi also settled on its own platform with a three-year suspension.
Kalshi has published each notice on its own regulatory documents page, giving a public paper trail for the fines and suspensions separate from any parallel CFTC case, and the exchange has said cooperating members generally receive lighter penalties than those who contest the findings.
Kalshi has published each notice on its own regulatory documents page, giving a public paper trail for the fines and suspensions separate from any parallel CFTC case, and the exchange has said cooperating members generally receive lighter penalties than those who contest the findings.
