Kalshi Issues Lifetime Ban to Former Congressman
Mike Goodpaster Published 01/09/2026
Kalshi has issued its first-ever lifetime ban to former Congressman George Santos. Santos was recently fined $71,356 for manipulating a trade in which he was involved. Santos posted on social media that he would be attending the 2026 State of the Union Address. He also made several public statements that he would be in attendance at the event. Then he made several trades with Kalshi that he would not be attending. Santos did not attend President Trump's address.
Kalshi additionally revealed that it was banning the former New York Congressman because Santos was uncooperative with the prediction market site during its investigation of his actions.
Santos is the first to get a lifetime ban from Kalshi
Kalshi acknowledged that Santos is the first person to be issued a lifetime ban from their platform. They outlined the reasons for the ban in a statement.
“As a person capable of influencing the outcome of the underlying event, Santos was prohibited from trading in this market,” the company said in its statement. "[Santos] placed a series of large trades in a market where the underlying contracts depended upon his own attendance at the event”
The trades were made between February 12 and February 25. Kalshi added that Santos made “a series of public statements regarding his attendance at the event in an attempt to influence the price of Yes and No contracts, respectively.” The company indicated that some of those statements were “false or misleading.”
On Kalshi's prediction market site, users can trade “Yes” or “No” outcomes. These outcomes are based on whether they think something will happen in the future. Santos made a public display advising he'd be at the State of the Union. At the same time, he was making trades on Kalshi predicting that he wouldn't be at the event.
Insider trading like this is strictly prohibited.
“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's statement continued. "Ultimately, these statements did in fact manipulate the price of said contracts. Furthermore, the Department found that Santos materially benefited from his trading activity, profiting $17,839.57 in the Target Markets.”
Former Congressman claps back at the prediction market site
Santos is never a man to be short on words. He was quick to go on the offensive following the announcement of his Kalshi ban.
"Hey @Kalshi, thanks for the lifetime ban from your gambling platform," Santos wrote on the social media site X on Monday. "Let's see how much longer you guys are around for."
CFTC has already banned Santos over his Kalshi trades
Following a July investigation, Santos agreed to pay $35,000 to settle a federal probe into his suspicious trades on Kalshi. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator of prediction market sites, also imposed a three-year trading ban on Santos.
"After these posts, the SOTU contract prices moved in a direction favorable to Santos' positions, which allowed him to make over $17,500," the CFTC said in a July statement.
Kalshi's head of enforcement and legal counsel, Robert DeNault, told CBS News that the company's compliance team did its job by catching Santos.
"Prediction markets might be relatively new for people ... but this type of behavior is not new," DeNault said. "[Santos] has been subject to punishment by the CFTC, and now he's being subject to punishment by our exchange."