Kalshi and Polymarket Flag More Than 100 Potential Insider Trading Cases in 2026

Kalshi and Polymarket say they have flagged more than 100 cases of potential insider trading in 2026 so far, with the CFTC moving slowly on enforcement. For high-risk operators, the useful part is not the theater around prediction markets — it is the reminder that these products can create the same surveillance and reporting headaches as any other regulated trading venue.

1. Kalshi said it flagged 50 cases, while Polymarket flagged 90, for more than 100 potential insider-trading issues in 2026 so far. The cases span both the United States and overseas.
2. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has been slow to respond, according to the source, largely because the agency has been pared down under the Trump administration. Its Chicago bureau lost all of its trial attorneys and absorbed millions in cost cuts.
3. The article says many staff members left voluntarily, presumably because their expertise can command higher pay elsewhere. It also contrasts the current pace with 2024, when the CFTC levied a record $17.1 billion in monetary relief across 58 enforcement actions. So far this year, there have been 11 enforcement actions with less than $1 billion collected in the past $1 billion months.
4. The CFTC has also been reluctant to act on prediction markets themselves, instead fighting state gambling authorities over whether those markets are illegal gambling. The regulator has filed legal actions to intervene where local authorities have deemed prediction markets illegal.
5. The source cites several concrete cases that show how insider abuse can work in practice: Minnesota state Senator Matthew Klein was allegedly flagged by Kalshi for trading on his own race; in April, a US Army Master Sergeant was prosecuted over bets on the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, making around $33,000; and a former White House teleprompter operator was caught betting on President Trump’s speeches and is facing a civil settlement with the CFTC.

For PSPs and acquiring teams, the point is simple: once a product starts looking like a market with tradable outcomes, you inherit monitoring expectations that are closer to trading surveillance than to ordinary payments processing. The article also notes that the National Football League has asked the CFTC to consider restricting events whose results can be known in advance or manipulated.