Kalshi bars George Santos for life after he bet against his own State of the Union attendance

The prediction-market exchange Kalshi has permanently barred George Santos, the disgraced former Republican congressman from New York, from trading on its platform after concluding he manipulated a market on his own attendance at February's State of the Union address. It is the first lifetime ban the exchange has issued since it began offering political and current-events contracts to the public.

Kalshi announced the ban on August 31 alongside enforcement actions against three other political figures who had placed bets tied to their own campaigns, part of a broader compliance sweep the company says was triggered by growing scrutiny of self-referential wagers as prediction markets have become a fixture of American political culture ahead of the midterms.

How the bet worked

Between February 12 and February 25, Santos took positions on a Kalshi contract asking whether he would personally attend President Trump's address to Congress. According to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's settlement order, Santos wagered against his own attendance while simultaneously posting on social media that he intended to be there, including a video in which he said, "I'm going to be there for the State of the Union." When the speech began, Santos instead posted that he was "watching SOTU from an airport tv," a claim that moved the contract's price in his favor and let him close out his position for a profit.

The CFTC found Santos engaged in "manipulative activity in an event contract — whose underlying event Santos controlled — designed to affect the price of the swap," a violation of the Commodity Exchange Act. He agreed in July to disgorge $17,569.98 in trading profits, pay a $17,500 civil penalty, accept a three-year trading ban and consent to a cease-and-desist order, without admitting or denying the CFTC's findings.

Kalshi's own penalty, announced five weeks later, went further. The company fined Santos $71,356 and barred him from the platform for life, a step it said followed his refusal to cooperate with its internal compliance investigation. A Kalshi spokesperson, Elisabeth Diana, said it was the first permanent ban in the company's history. The exchange's head of enforcement, Bobby DeNault, said four traders in all were swept up in the review for breaking rules against manipulating markets they could personally influence, but that only one of them had refused to cooperate once questioned.

A pattern from a habitual fabricator

The episode is the latest entry in a congressional career defined by fabrication. Santos won New York's 3rd District in 2022 on a biography later shown to be substantially invented — claims about his education, employment history and finances that unraveled within weeks of his swearing-in. A House roll call vote of 311 to 114 expelled him on December 1, 2023, making him only the sixth member ousted from the chamber in its history and the first without a prior criminal conviction or vote for treason.

Santos pleaded guilty in 2024 to federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced in April 2025 that he had been sentenced to 87 months in prison and ordered to pay $373,749.97 in restitution and $205,002.97 in forfeiture for stealing donors' identities, running up unauthorized charges on supporters' credit cards and filing false campaign finance reports. He surrendered to federal prison that July. President Trump commuted the remainder of the sentence in October 2025, and Santos was released after roughly 84 days in custody — about four months before he placed the bets that would draw the CFTC's attention.

Not the only candidate betting on itself

Kalshi's compliance sweep caught three other people who had wagered on outcomes they had a hand in controlling, though none received a permanent ban. Laurie Buckhout, a Republican congressional candidate in North Carolina and a retired Army colonel, was fined $2,589 and suspended for three years after betting less than $1,000 on her own race. "I bet on myself. Literally," she said in a statement. "It was a dumb mistake, and as soon as I learned there was an issue, I worked to make it right." Stephen Cloobeck, a timeshare executive who ran for governor of California, drew a three-year suspension after purchasing roughly $10,000 in contracts tied to his own candidacy. Ben Midgley, a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Maine, was suspended for three years over bets of less than $1,000; he said he stopped once he learned the exchange discouraged candidates from trading on their own races. Polymarket, a rival prediction-market platform, had already cut ties with Santos in June, before Kalshi's action.

The cases underscore a structural tension in the fast-growing prediction-market industry: contracts on elections, hearings and other political events are, by design, tied to the actions of the very people who might be tempted to trade on inside knowledge of their own conduct. The CFTC has treated Kalshi's political contracts as regulated swaps since a federal court cleared the way for the exchange to list election-outcome markets, putting the agency in the position of policing wagers on the people it also, in other capacities, oversees as public officials or candidates.

"All but one individual — George Santos — cooperated with our Compliance Department inquiries and will be banned temporarily," Kalshi's head of enforcement, Bobby DeNault, said of the sweep that also caught three political candidates.

Reaction and what happens next

Santos rejected the ban publicly. In posts on X, he called Kalshi "an unserious company" and dismissed the action as "frivolous nonsense," adding, "Let's see how much longer you guys are around for." He did not dispute the underlying trades. Santos has continued to face financial fallout from his congressional tenure: the restitution and forfeiture ordered in his federal case remain outstanding, and the CFTC's trading ban runs through 2029.

For Kalshi, the enforcement sweep arrives as the company markets itself as a legitimate, regulated alternative to offshore betting sites and courts institutional volume on 2026 midterm contracts. Barring a former member of Congress for life, company officials suggested, was meant to signal that the exchange intends to police self-dealing by political figures more aggressively as betting volume on House and Senate races climbs into the fall. Neither Kalshi nor the CFTC has indicated whether further cases involving sitting officials or candidates are under review, and the agency's three-year trading ban against Santos does not by itself prevent him from seeking office again or engaging in other financial activity outside prediction markets.