Kalshi Expands Fight Against 'Insider Trading,' CEO Says

By Bill Speros

Feb 5th, 2026 5:00 PM EDT

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour Thursday said his prediction market platform will expand its fight against "insider trading."

In a post on LinkedIn, Mansour said his platform has run "over 200 investigations and froze relevant accounts. Of these, over a dozen have become active cases and several have been referred to law enforcement" when it comes to claims of insider trading.

"Insider trading erodes trust. When people believe a market is unfair, they stop trading. Liquidity dries up, volume collapses, and the market dies. Also, allowing it could incentivize bad actors to leak information they shouldn’t," he wrote. "So Kalshi bans insider trading."

Changes Coming To Kalshi To Highten Enforcement

Among the changes outlined by Mansour Thursday:

1. Wharton Forensics Lab: We’re bringing Wharton Forensic Analytics Lab Director Daniel Taylor, one of the premier forensics experts, to advise us. He will help us investigate intricate "cousin of the spouse of the dude at Tesla" insider cases.

2. Brian Nelson: We’re adding Brian, former Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, to counsel us on financial compliance and integrity.

3. Surveillance Audit Committee: We’re forming an independent committee of market integrity experts like Lisa Pinheiro to provide quarterly reports to Brian and publish relevant statistics.

4. System upgrades: We're partnering with Solidus Labs. Their institutional-grade behavior monitoring and pattern recognition tools will be added to our systems.

5. Robert J. DeNault as Head of Enforcement: Bobby is a force of nature and a self-professed financial crime nerd. He was a white-collar criminal attorney and spent law school studying presidential investigations and the Panama Papers. He’s also a great guy - we love Bobby.

Kalshi 'Spent Years' Building Surveillance System

Mansour said his platform "spent years building a market surveillance system similar to those used by NYSE and Nasdaq." Adding that Kalshi uses three steps when it comes to insider trading:

1. Detect
2. Investigate
3. Enforce

Mansour argued in his post that all activity on Kalshi is public, and it's reported daily to the Commodities Futures Trading Corporation. That includes tips sent in by traders.

"I know some of you are frustrated that we don't tell you what happens after you send a tip. I get the frustration. Legally, we need to keep our investigations private – but please know your help is super valuable."

Prediction Markets Under Scrutiny From Legislators, Litigators

In a related release, Kalahi reiterated its current integrity safeguards.

“Being federally regulated means that Kalshi bans market manipulation, insider trading, has limits on the types of markets it lists, runs Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks on every user before they can trade, and publicly reports all trades to the CFTC daily,” the company said in a release. “Kalshi also spent years building custom prediction market trade surveillance and enforcement systems that are similar to those used in the stock market.

The NFL this year won’t allow prediction markets like Kalshi or Polymarket to buy airtime on NBC’s broadcast. Kalshi’s “Pro Football Champion” market opened Feb. 9, 2025. As of Thursday morning, it had handled $166,395,173 in total trades. That number stood at $148,535,077 on the day after the AFC & NFC Championship Games.

Kalshi - and other prediction markets — also offer trades in outcomes such as which songs Bad Bunny will sing at halftime and which companies will air ads during the game. Those, too, have triggered insider trading concerns.

New York Attorney General Letitia James Monday issued a warning saying "New Yorkers need to know the significant risks with unregulated prediction markets,” James said in a statement Monday that "so-called prediction markets do not have the same consumer protections as regulated platforms."

About the Author

Bill Speros

More About Bill

Bill is an award-winning journalist and editor whose career includes stops at USA Today Sports Network / Golfweek, Cox Media, ESPN, Orlando Sentinel and Denver Post. He's been covering the North American regulated gambling market for almost a decade and has his finger on the pulse for all industry news involving sportsbooks, online casinos, prediction markets and more. Bill placed his first bet at age 11, and his first job was as a paper boy delivering the Boston Herald and Boston Globe. By age 16, he was playing blackjack and getting comped drinks on the Las Vegas Strip. When home, his weekend rotation included trips to Wonderland Greyhound Park and Raynham Greyhound Park. After 30 years in legacy media, Bill wedded his passion for journalism and storytelling with a lifetime of wagering by working at Gambling.com.

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