Kalshi bans ex-congressman George Santos for life and fines him $71,400 over insider betting

Kalshi has permanently barred former Republican congressman George Santos from its platform and fined him $71,400 after he placed bets on whether he would attend President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress. The case matters for high-risk operators because it shows how prediction markets are treating insider-style activity: not as a gray area to shrug off, but as something that can trigger both platform sanctions and regulator action.

1. According to Kalshi, Santos bet earlier this year on whether he himself would be present during Trump’s address to Congress. Kalshi responded with a lifetime ban and a $71,400 penalty.
2. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had already fined Santos $35,000 in July for using insider information. The latest Kalshi action lands on top of that, so this is not a one-off platform warning shot; it is part of a broader enforcement trail.
3. Prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi have become increasingly popular in the U.S., with users betting on political and economic outcomes. That growth is exactly why these venues are now being watched so closely: the closer the contract is to a real-world event, the easier it is for regulators to ask who knew what, and when.
4. The enforcement pattern is expanding. In May, the U.S. State Department barred American diplomats from using classified information for betting. On August 28, the CFTC also fined Donald Trump’s former teleprompter operator $172,000 for using insider information in a similar way.
5. Santos has been a recurring headline for reasons that matter to regulators and compliance teams alike. He was elected to the House of Representatives in autumn 2022, expelled from Congress and detained in 2023, sentenced in April 2025 to seven years in prison for fraud and identity theft, and then freed in October 2025 after Trump signed an order releasing him.

The pattern is pretty clear: prediction markets are no longer being treated like novelty side-bets when the underlying information is non-public. For PSPs, exchanges, and any provider touching high-risk flow, the issue is not just market integrity; it is whether the platform has controls strong enough to spot and act on insider use before the regulator does.