Two political figures faced penalties from Kalshi this week over bets connected to their own careers, with former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) drawing a lifetime ban and North Carolina congressional candidate Laurie Buckhout receiving a three-year suspension.
Kalshi permanently barred Santos from its platform and imposed a penalty exceeding $70,000, marking the company’s first lifetime ban of a user.
Kalshi alleges Santos declined to cooperate with an internal investigation into a series of large bets he placed on whether he would attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year.
Santos responded on social media platform X: “Thanks for the lifetime ban from your gambling platform. Let’s see how much longer you guys are around for.”
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which oversees prediction markets including Kalshi at the federal level, said in July that Santos earned approximately $18,000 by manipulating the market through social media posts about his State of the Union attendance plans. He agreed to repay more than $35,000 to settle the CFTC’s charges without admitting to its findings.
NC candidate suspended for three years
Kalshi fined Buckhout, the Republican candidate in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, more than $2,500 and suspended her from the platform for three years. The company alleges she placed bets on whether she would win her own race, a seat Republicans redrew to favor the GOP ahead of the November election.
Buckhout agreed to Kalshi’s settlement offer. “I bet on myself. Literally,” she said in a statement, calling the trades a “dumb mistake.”
She added that “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.”
Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.), Buckhout’s opponent in the race, called the episode a “disqualifying breach of public trust” and said on social media that “Eastern North Carolinians are struggling with the everyday costs of healthcare, gas, groceries, and housing, while my opponent treats a congressional election as an opportunity to cash in.”
Cases fit wider pattern of enforcement
The Santos and Buckhout penalties arrived alongside a third sanction Kalshi issued Monday against Gabriel Perez, a former White House teleprompter operator the CFTC said made more than $107,000 trading on the contents of Trump’s speeches. Perez will pay over $172,000 to settle the charges and faces a three-year ban from Kalshi.
Prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket have grown rapidly in recent years, with users placing wagers on US elections, sporting events and labor market data, among other varied topics.
The activity has drawn increased scrutiny over unregulated gambling, and a separate legal dispute over state oversight remains unresolved: a federal appeals court ruled Friday that Nevada may regulate prediction markets, conflicting with an earlier decision from the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, which found that New Jersey cannot regulate Kalshi.
Original article: https://www.yogonet.com/international/news/2026/09/02/126171-former-rep-george-santos-receives-lifetime-kalshi-ban-over-state-of-the-union-bets
