The prediction market platform Kalshi will soon require users to disclose their employer before placing certain trades that involve sensitive information, the company confirmed to NBC News on Tuesday.
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The new requirement will apply to markets deemed at higher risk for insider trading or market manipulation, according to Kalshi.
Markets that could trigger the requirement include those tied to corporate performance, national security and major geopolitical events, including the Iran war.
Users subject to the requirement will be asked to submit employment information through an online form. According to a Kalshi spokesperson, the platform will not verify employment unless an investigation is warranted, although there could be certain instances where a person is blocked from trading a particular contract based on their employment.
Kalshi said one example of that might be a Google employee seeking to trade on a Google-related prediction market — a scenario that actually played out at Kalshi’s top competitor, Polymarket, last month. The employee in question was charged with insider trading after allegedly using confidential Google search data to place trades.
The changes at Kalshi, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, come as prediction markets face growing scrutiny over insider trading and market manipulation, particularly around elections.
Earlier this year, Kalshi fined and suspended three political candidates for trading on their own elections — conduct the company described at the time as “political insider trading.”
Alongside the new employer-disclosure requirements, Kalshi also announced a series of what it called “market integrity” updates, including a “risk scoring framework” designed to identify markets with elevated insider trading risk.
The framework will also assess whether markets pose potential national security concerns. While Kalshi does not allow markets on war, assassination or violence, it said some leadership and foreign policy markets can still present “incidental national security concerns.”
“By running an assessment on the national security risk a market might present before we list it, we can better prevent dangerous events from having a negative effect on our markets — or vice versa,” Robert DeNault, head of enforcement at Kalshi, wrote in a blog post.
Other measures include expanded whistleblower tools that allow users to report suspicious activity directly to the company’s surveillance team, which will monitor the feed 24/7.
“Prediction markets need to be safe spaces to trade,” DeNault added. “And Kalshi is committed to leading the industry on market integrity.”
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is the federal agency that has so far taken the lead in regulating prediction markets, under the theory that event contract exchanges are much like the other commodities exchanges it regulates.
But Kalshi says it has been effectively policing itself, too.
The platform confirmed Tuesday it has opened more than 150 investigations this year, blocked more than 100 potential insider trades using new screening tools, referred more than 20 cases to law enforcement and taken five disciplinary actions.
U.S. laws prohibit insider trading, and the CFTC conducts platform surveillance. However, while the CFTC has asserted broad federal authority over prediction markets, several states have also brought their own civil cases against events-based exchanges, alleging that they violate state gambling statutes.
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