George Santos receives lifetime ban from Kalshi for insider trading on own attendance

Prediction market platform Kalshi has issued its first-ever lifetime ban against former U.S. Representative George Santos, ordering him to pay a $71,356 penalty. The platform found Santos engaged in insider trading by betting on his own attendance at President Donald Trump's State of the Union address and using social media to manipulate contract prices. Santos, whose prison sentence for fraud was commuted by Trump in 2025, mocked the platform on X. Kalshi also suspended three other political candidates, including North Carolina congressional nominee Laurie Buckhout, for betting on their own races.

Santos Kalshi lifetime ban

• ▪Kalshi ordered George Santos to pay a financial penalty of $71,356 on August 31, 2026, citing his lack of cooperation with the platform's internal compliance investigation
• ▪George Santos mocked Kalshi on the social media platform X on August 31, 2026, thanking the platform for the lifetime ban and referring to it as a "gambling platform."
• ▪The prediction market platform Kalshi permanently banned former U.S. Representative George Santos of New York on August 31, 2026, marking the platform's first-ever lifetime ban

State of Union betting

• ▪The lifetime ban against George Santos stems from bets he placed on Kalshi between February 2 and February 25 on whether he would attend President Donald Trump's 2026 State of the Union address
• ▪George Santos earned a profit of over $17,000 on Kalshi by making false or misleading public statements on social media to manipulate the price of contracts regarding his State of the Union attendance
• ▪In July 2026, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered George Santos to pay $35,000 and banned him from trading for three years to settle charges of market manipulation regarding his State of the Union bets

Political insider trading cases

• ▪Kalshi announced three-year suspensions and financial penalties on August 31, 2026, for three political candidates—Laurie Buckhout, Stephen Cloobeck, and Ben Midgley—who bet on their own election races
• ▪The Commodity Futures Trading Commission previously ordered former White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez to pay $172,000 for insider trading on Donald Trump's speeches
• ▪Laurie Buckhout, the Republican nominee for North Carolina's 1st Congressional District, admitted to betting on her own campaign, calling it a "dumb mistake," and was fined approximately $2,600 by Kalshi

Prediction market regulation

• ▪Prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket have faced intense scrutiny and pressure from federal regulators and lawmakers over potential insider trading and market manipulation
• ▪In June 2026, the prediction market platform Polymarket ended its paid relationship with George Santos, who had been working as an online influencer for the company

Santos Trump clemency

• ▪George Santos was expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives in December 2023, becoming only the sixth lawmaker in history to be expelled, following revelations that he fabricated parts of his biography
• ▪President Donald Trump commuted George Santos's prison sentence in October 2025 after Santos served less than three months of an 87-month sentence for wire fraud and identity theft

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