Senators ban themselves from prediction markets after candidates bet on own races

Kalshi also issued a five-year suspension and a penalty of $6,229.30 to independent Mark Moran, a Senate candidate in Virginia, who did not agree to a settlement. “YES, I did bet ~$100 on myself on Kalshi because I wanted to get caught,” Moran wrote in an X post . Moran said he refused a settlement offer that would have compelled him to make a public statement, and that he made the bet to draw attention to Kalshi and his own campaign. “For $100, I just got more attention from CNN, Fox, WSJ, etc than any media consultant ever,” he wrote . “In politics, money has always bought attention, but I can get attention for almost free.” US blocks states from regulating Moran wrote that “Kalshi is currently being sued by many states for being an illegal betting market,” and that he made the bet to “bring to light that our ‘democracy’ is up for sale and Kalshi is a platform that can be manipulated by the highest bidder/donor to move a market which will sway voters bc the media will report on it.” The Trump administration has fought state efforts to impose stricter regulations on prediction markets. The US won a court ruling that prevents New Jersey from enforcing laws that prohibit betting on college sports and require licenses to offer other types of sports wagers. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has jurisdiction over prediction markets and recently announced lawsuits against Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois to challenge the states’ regulations. …