George Santos Bet on Whether He'd Show Up to the State of the Union—Kalshi Just Banned Him for Life

In brief

• Kalshi permanently banned former Rep. George Santos and fined him $71,356 for manipulating a market tied to his own attendance at the State of the Union address—its first lifetime ban of a former member of Congress.
• Kalshi found Santos placed large trades between Feb. 2 and 25, then made false or misleading public statements to move prices, profiting $17,839.57 and violating rules on manipulation and trading with influence over an outcome.
• It's the latest integrity scandal to hit prediction markets, following multiple recent cases.

Prediction market Kalshi has permanently banned former Rep. George Santos, finding that he manipulated a market tied to his own attendance at the State of the Union address and pocketed nearly $18,000 in the process.

In a disciplinary notice dated Aug. 28, Kalshi's compliance department said Santos placed a series of large trades between Feb. 2 and Feb. 25 in a market whose outcome hinged on whether he would attend the event.

As someone capable of influencing that outcome, Santos was barred from trading it under exchange rules. He then made a string of public statements about his attendance, some of them false or misleading, in a bid to move the price of the "Yes" and "No" contracts, according to the notice.