TL;DR
- Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour backed Rep. Ritchie Torres’ insider-trading ban after a Polymarket account made $400,000 on a Maduro ouster bet.
- The Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026 would bar federal officials and branch staff from betting on policy, action, or political outcomes.
- Mansour said Kalshi applies NYSE and Nasdaq-style rules; December volumes hit $6.26B for Kalshi versus $2.28B for Polymarket as players enter.
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour is backing proposed U.S. legislation that would explicitly bar insider trading on prediction markets, positioning the firm as a regulated alternative to platforms facing allegations. In a Wednesday LinkedIn post, Mansour said Kalshi supports Rep. Ritchie Torres’ bill because the exchange has already implemented comparable restrictions. The comments followed a Polymarket bet that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be ousted by the end of January, with one account reportedly profiting $400,000 after his capture. For Mansour, public integrity is now the market’s central narrative, and he wants the distinction clear today.
A Bill, a Line in the Sand, and a Growing Market
Torres’ proposal, the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, would ban federal elected officials, political appointees, and executive branch employees from making bets involving “government policy, government action or political outcome.” Mansour said Kalshi is supportive of affirming a ban on insider trading on prediction markets because it has already implemented one. He wrote that some recent reporting has been conflating regulated prediction markets with unregulated, offshore platforms, and insisted that regulated U.S. platforms operate under different rules and oversight, with clearer accountability for users and stricter surveillance standards overall right now.
Mansour said Kalshi, as a federally regulated platform, adopts insider trading regulations from the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. In practice, users are barred from trading if they have access to nonpublic information about a market, he wrote, importing familiar guardrails from traditional finance. He emphasized a limit, too: the bill would apply only to regulated American companies, not to unregulated, non-American firms, which he said is where alleged issues are occurring. That distinction makes enforcement scope as important as policy intent, especially online and across borders for compliance in practice today more broadly.
The push for clarity comes as prediction markets are scaling rapidly and attracting new entrants. In December, both Kalshi and Polymarket set all-time highs for monthly volume, with Kalshi reporting $6.26 billion and Polymarket at $2.28 billion. Since March 2025, Kalshi has consistently widened its lead as the largest prediction market exchange by volume. Other major players have also entered the arena, including Crypto.com, Gemini, and DraftKings, broadening distribution and marketing reach. With volumes growing, compliance messaging is becoming a competitive moat for regulated operators and their partners, at scale and under scrutiny in 2026.
