A former candidate in the 2026 race for governor of California and a popular YouTuber have been kicked off Kalshi’s platform for alleged violations related to insider trading, the popular prediction market revealed Wednesday.
In a blog post detailing the cases, Kalshi’s head of enforcement Robert DeNault noted that the company’s surveillance system had flagged suspicious behavior in both instances.
In the case of the political candidate, Kalshi cited a video posted online “that appeared to show him trading on his own candidacy.” Kalshi froze the candidate’s accounts and reported the activity to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the government agency that oversees prediction markets. It instituted a five-year ban and is fining the account a penalty 10 times the size of the initial trade, which Kalshi says it intends to donate to charity.
While Kalshi does not mention the candidate by name, DeNault notes that they have recently dropped out of the race and shifted to running for Congress. This fits the description of only one person involved in the race: Kyle Langford, a far-right Republican candidate best known for inflammatory antisemitic comments praising Nazis. Langford has since dropped out and launched a campaign styled as a progressive Democrat in California’s 26th district.
In May 2025, Langford posted a video to X showing a screen recording of a trade order placed on Kalshi for an event in the governor’s race. Shortly after the incident, Kalshi confirmed that it was looking into Langford’s activities. In his description of the investigation into the candidate, DeNault notes that Kalshi began its investigation that May.
“Tensions between the USA and Iran are at an all time high and the media has chosen to cover a $200 campaign gimmick (aka betting on I, myself) from last year,” Langford said in a statement to WIRED. “Is this really the state of our political discourse?”
This is not the only suspension tied to the California governor race; as Politico reported yesterday, Democratic megadonor Stephen Cloobeck, who was briefly a candidate before dropping out to endorse representative Eric Swalwell, has also been blocked by the platform for attempting to trade on the race. “In the event we ever see a candidate trading on their own candidacy, it triggers disciplinary action on the exchange. Their trade gets frozen. They may be permanently suspended from having an account,” DeNault said in a statement. Cloobeck confirmed the bets to Politico, and said he is still able to trade on other events.
This crackdown underscores how expansive definitions of “insider trading” can be on prediction markets; while traditional insider trading cases hinge on subjects profiting from “material nonpublic information”—confidential data or intelligence that can impact stock prices—here, even placing bets while working on an election or running for office can violate the rules.
In the case of the YouTube streamer, Kalshi reports that its surveillance systems flagged the account based on “statistically anomalous” trading success. It also received concurrent tips from Kalshi users, who had flagged the unusual activities. “We investigated and found that the trader was employed as an editor for the streamer’s show and likely had access to material non-public information connected to his trading,” DeNault writes in the report. The account was frozen before it could withdraw funds; it is now suspended for two years, and it has also received a financial penalty. Kalshi did not disclose the identity of the YouTube streamer.
As prediction markets have exploded in popularity, there has been a series of high-profile incidents of suspected insider trading, including major trades made just prior to geopolitical events like the US capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. In Israel, two Polymarket traders were recently arrested for leaking classified information in connection to trades made on military activity. Following the Maduro incident, Congress introduced a bill to ban government officials from insider trading on prediction markets—but there have not been any enforcement actions made public yet.
The CFTC has not yet publicly acknowledged Kalshi’s reports. (The agency did not respond to requests for comment from WIRED.) Typically, when suspected insider trading is flagged for the agency, its Enforcement Division will subpoena relevant documents, assess evidence, and then make a recommendation about potential charges. As the political battle heats up over how the company is regulated, the CFTC’s approach to enforcement will likely be under close scrutiny.
This is the first time Kalshi has revealed details about its own processes for flagging apparent insider trading, but DeNault says the company plans to release additional information as more investigations close, “similar to how CME Group and others do.” Notably, CME Group is not another prediction market—it’s the parent company operating the largest derivatives exchanges in the US.
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