Campaign staffers looking to profit on political races are still trying to place bets on prediction markets, despite new public scrutiny toward insider trading — and internal efforts to curb the practice.Kalshi, the biggest prediction market company, is hoping to bar political staffers from trading on their own races with a new system that flags possible violations.The company says "dozens" of staffers have tried to bet on their own candidates since May, but that it blocked the trades.The company's new program cross-references the names of campaign staffers listed in Federal Election Commission data against its own user logs.
The FEC requires campaigns to list contribution and expenditure data, including some of the names and addresses of staffers on the campaign payroll.Robert DeNault, Kalshi's head of enforcement and legal counsel, said his team has blocked a lot of campaign trades using FEC data."If we're able to identify a potential match, we have markets that are associated with each of the campaigns that are flagged, and those individuals would be prevented from placing trades on those markets," said DeNault in an interview with NPR.Still, at least one campaign operative — who is listed in FEC records — was able to trade on a race they were involved in, despite Kalshi's new monitoring program.The campaign staffer shared records of their recent trade and spoke to NPR on the condition of anonymity for fear of consequences for their future employment.These political trades come in the midst of an election year and growing bipartisan concerns about prediction markets and the incentives they offer for insider trading and manipulation.
In a recent Brennan Center report, the nonpartisan organization said election prediction markets have the potential to "fuel misinformation and efforts to influence election outcomes" during the 2026 midterms.Kalshi's FEC monitoring program was announced in May, days after NPR reported that some campaign staffers had made thou...