Kalshi, a prediction market platform, announced Monday it has issued a lifetime ban to former New York Republican Congressman George Santos and imposed a $71,356 penalty, citing violations of its terms of service and accusations of insider trading.
The platform stated that its compliance department found reasonable cause to believe Santos engaged in illicit trading by betting against his own attendance at Donald Trump's State of the Union address in February 2026. Santos had publicly stated he would attend the event but did not. According to Kalshi, he profited $17,839.57 from this bet.
"The Compliance Department found that Santos made these statements with the intent to manipulate the price of the Yes or No contracts that he intended to purchase," Kalshi said in a statement. "Ultimately, these statements did in fact manipulate the price of said contracts."
Santos, who was expelled from Congress in 2023 over fraud and identity theft charges and later sentenced to over seven years in prison for misleading donors and misusing campaign funds, responded to the ban on the social platform X. "Hey @Kalshi, thanks for the lifetime ban from your gambling platform," he wrote, adding, "Let's see how much longer you guys are around for."
Santos's prison sentence was commuted by Donald Trump after he served approximately three months. Kalshi had previously reported Santos to the U.S. Department of Justice in June after detecting suspicious trading activity from his account, according to a source who spoke to Reuters.
The ban on Santos comes as prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket are experiencing an increase in suspicious trading activity, presenting new compliance challenges as regulators and law enforcement intensify scrutiny of the growing sector.
Kalshi also penalized Laurie Buckhout, the Republican nominee for North Carolina's First Congressional District, for improper trading related to her own campaign. Buckhout received a three-year suspension and a fine of just under $2,600. She told CNN that she "bet on myself" and acknowledged it was a mistake she worked to rectify.