Kalshi Blocks Athletes and Politicians From Prediction Market Trading

Prediction market Kalshi is drawing a new line. The company plans to block professional and collegiate athletes from betting on their own teams. Political candidates get cut off too, specifically from trading on markets tied to their own campaigns.

The announcement, first reported by Axios, came Monday. It wasn't just a policy update. Kalshi installed an actual technical mechanism to stop those trades from going through in the first place.

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The Rules Existed. The Problem Was Enforcement.

Kalshi's existing terms already banned athletes from trading on their games. Same went for politicians on their campaigns. But the old setup relied on catching violations after they happened. That changes now.

Robert DeNault, head of enforcement at Kalshi, told Axios the preemptive approach gives the company a stronger shot at stopping illicit activity early. "You'll never stop all illicit activity everywhere," DeNault said. "But you shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good either."

Kalshi will also work with outside contractors. One of them is Integrity Compliance 360, known as IC360. They screen athletes at the sign-up stage, before any trades are placed.

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Polymarket Moved the Same Day. That's Not a Coincidence.

Kalshi's main competitor, Polymarket, also announced changes Monday. The rival platform put out what it called "enhanced market integrity rules." These ban trading on stolen information. They also ban trading by anyone who can directly influence an outcome.

Two platforms tightening the same rules on the same day signals something. Insider trading is now the issue prediction markets most want to get ahead of.

Gambling and prediction markets analyst Dustin Gouker told Axios the stakes are real. "I think the prediction markets view insider trading as an issue that can kill the golden goose," Gouker said, "and they're taking it seriously."

Congress Isn't Waiting for Platforms to Self-Regulate

A bipartisan Senate bill landed the same day. Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis introduced the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act. It would ban CFTC-regulated exchanges from allowing sports or casino game trading entirely.

Senator Curtis, a Republican from Utah, framed it as a jurisdiction argument. Too many young people are being exposed to addictive sports betting, he said in a statement, on markets that should fall under state control rather than federal regulators.

That tension isn't new. The Arizona attorney general already filed criminal charges against Kalshi last week. The accusation: operating an unlicensed sports gambling operation. Trump's CFTC chair Mike Selig has signaled the commission plans to fight those state-level challenges.

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Athletes Are Already Under Scrutiny

The backdrop here matters. Multiple MLB pitchers, NBA players, and NCAA basketball players have faced accusations in recent months. The allegations: conspiring with outsiders to fix or manipulate game outcomes for betting profit.

Gouker told Axios that surveillance across thousands of markets with thousands of potential insiders is not a simple task. But it's "certainly not an impossible problem," he added.

Kalshi's preemptive move tries to cut that problem off before it grows. Whether regulators, state attorneys general, or Congress finds that sufficient is another question entirely.

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