Kalshi's "Don't Bet On Yourself" Policy Strikes Again — This Time With A Congressman Who Already Won 🏛️

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating former Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois over prediction market trades tied to the presidential pardon he received from Joe Biden, according to a Politico report citing three people with knowledge of the matter. The trades were executed through a Kalshi account linked to Kinzinger in December 2024 and January 2025. Kinzinger told the publication he had wagered on a contract covering whether he personally would receive a pardon, and on a separate contract covering whether Biden would issue preemptive pardons before leaving office. Biden did so in his final hours in January 2025, preemptively pardoning Kinzinger and other members of the House select committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Donald Trump, who was inaugurated shortly after Biden signed the pardons, had publicly called for the committee's members to be jailed.

The sums at stake were small. Screenshots shared by Kinzinger showed he made $823 on the trades. He said he placed around 25 positions during the period, most of which lost money, and he denies any wrongdoing. Kinzinger said he had been out of office for two years when he placed the bets, was neither a congressman nor a candidate, and had "no inside information." He added that he had read Kalshi's rules beforehand and understood them to prohibit trading where a user works for the relevant agency, can influence the outcome, or holds non-public information about it, and that he had never discussed the pardons with anyone. Kalshi's terms prohibit users from betting on contracts in which they are direct participants, and CFTC rules bar the use of material nonpublic information on the markets it regulates. The exchange has also been reviewing the transactions. Both the CFTC and Kalshi declined to comment to Politico, and Kinzinger said neither had contacted him about the investigation.

Kalshi has taken action in comparable cases. The platform suspended three congressional candidates in April over bets on their own races. It also froze the account of former Representative George Santos and referred him to the CFTC and the Justice Department over trades made against his own attendance at the State of the Union while he publicly said he would go, then permanently banned him in late August. 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, netting nearly $18,000 in the process. Kinzinger has been among the platform's critics, writing in a Substack post last November that he objected specifically to markets tied to the conduct of individual members of Congress, citing contracts on which senator would first visit Syria and on how each member would vote on specific legislation.