Kalshi Suspends Three Congressional Candidates for Trading on Their Own Elections

Prediction market platform Kalshi suspended and fined three congressional candidates from Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia for political insider trading on their own campaigns, the company announced on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. The incidents involved a candidate from Virginia seeking a Senate seat and candidates running for House seats from Minnesota and Texas.

Kalshi said all three were flagged because of newly released safeguards to block political candidates from trading on their own elections. The sanctioned candidates were a candidate who had been a candidate in Virginia's Democratic primary for the Senate before deciding to seek the seat as an independent; a Democrat running in the primary for Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District; and a candidate who ran in the Republican primary for Texas's 21st Congressional District.

The Virginia candidate traded in two markets related to his campaign. The first was a market on individuals who would run for public office in 2026. This person placed a trade on himself in this market. Then, once the trader announced himself as a candidate for the Democratic Primary election for Virginia U.S. Senate, he again traded on his own candidacy.

The candidate, when contacted, initially acknowledged being a candidate and violating the rules, but later stopped communication. Kalshi fined the candidate and suspended him for five years from the trading platform.

The Minnesota candidate, who had traded a small amount on the outcome of his own election, acknowledged that the trading activity violated Kalshi exchange rules, agreed to pay a fine, and to a suspension from Kalshi for a period of 5 years. The Texas candidate, who traded a slightly larger amount on his own election, was fully cooperative with the investigation and agreed to settle acknowledging the rule violation, paying a fine, and accepting a 5-year suspension.

Kalshi rolled out an initiative weeks before April 22, 2026, designed to target political insider trading activity.

The candidate claimed he deliberately made the bet to see if Kalshi would follow through on penalizing him. Kalshi suggested in an enforcement update that it delivered a harsher fine because the trader did not accept responsibility. Two of these cases were settlements, but one was a disciplinary action.

The difference was cooperation: settlements were granted to traders who immediately acknowledged they violated the rules. In the other case, the trader did not accept responsibility, despite clear evidence he violated the rules. The consequence was a harsher penalty.

Cases like these demonstrate Kalshi’s commitment to policing all types of unfair or improper trading on the platform. Regardless of the size of a trade, political candidates who can influence a market based on whether they stay in or out of a race violate the rules. No matter how small the size of the trade, any trade that is found to have violated exchange rules will be punished.

In another batch of cases announced in February, Kalshi revealed that it had fined a far-right Republican politician and former California gubernatorial candidate for market manipulation.

Gov. JB Pritzker led Illinois in barring state employees from using insider information to bet on Kalshi and other betting markets. New York governor signed an executive order on Wednesday banning state government employees from insider trading, following similar orders in California and Illinois.

Illinois appears to be the seventh state to bar state employees from using insider information to bet on Kalshi and other betting markets.

Although he switched his affiliation from Democrat to Independent at the beginning of the month, the candidate is still listed as a candidate on Kalshi’s market for the Virginia Democratic Primary. His odds are currently at 1 percent.