Kalshi backs bill to bar prediction market insider trading by government officials

• Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour is backing a new bill to bar insider trading on prediction markets.
• The bill comes after someone made over $400,000 on a well-timed bet on Nicolás Maduro's future on Polymarket.
• Mansour also stressed the difference between regulated and unregulated prediction markets.

The head of a major prediction market platform is backing efforts to crack down on insider trading.

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour wrote on LinkedIn on Wednesday that his company is supporting a forthcoming bill from Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York aimed at barring insider trading by government officials on prediction market platforms.

Mansour stressed that Kalshi already forbids insider trading.

"Kalshi is supportive of the bill Ritchie Torres is looking to introduce to affirm the ban on insider trading on prediction markets. Why? Because we already implement it," Mansour wrote.

He also said that Kalshi's insider trading rules are adapted from the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq.

"If you have material non-public information on a market, you cannot trade it and if you do, you are committing a financial crime," Mansour wrote. "This applies to government employees, policymakers, executives, or anyone who holds information that is legally not meant to be public."

It all comes after a trader on Polymarket — a competing prediction market platform — made a well-timed trade on former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's future just hours before his capture, netting over $400,000.

Polymarket, unlike Kalshi, does not explicitly forbid insider trading.

Mansour also said regulated prediction markets like Kalshi were being conflated with "unregulated, offshore prediction markets," and that criticizing regulated markets for actions committed on the latter would only help the foreign markets.

"Prediction markets, like any industry, are not a monolith: there are important distinctions that matter," Mansour wrote.