A North Carolina Congressional candidate was suspended and fined by prediction market operator Kalshi on Monday for trading contracts on herself in a heated race.
Key Takeaways
- Kalshi also fined Laurie Buckhout over $2,500.
- The Congressional candidate purchased $1,000 in contracts on herself.
- Buckhout cooperated with the investigation.
Kalshi announced that Republican House nominee Laurie Buckhout agreed to a three-year ban from using the trading exchange and a $2,589 fine.
Enjoying Covers content? Add us as a preferred source on your Google account“I bet on myself. Literally,” she said in a statement to The New York Times. “It was a dumb mistake, and as soon as I learned there was an issue, I worked to make it right. Safe to say my career as a Kalshi trader was short-lived.”
Rule violation
Kalshi said in its notification of settlement on its website that Buckhout purchased $1,000 in contracts that she would win the N.C. Congressional race after she announced her candidacy and was added to the operator’s market, sparking an investigation by Kalshi’s compliance department.
“As a candidate, Buckhout qualified as a direct decision maker for the contract and therefore had direct influence on the outcome of the underlying event,” Kalshi said in its notification. “Trading on such events is strictly prohibited under Rule 5.17(z).”
That Kalshi guideline states that an involved decision maker can’t directly or indirectly influence prediction markets through trading.
Kalshi said Buckhout cooperated with the investigation and accepted all terms for her trading actions in the First Congressional District race.
Market issues
Kalshi has Buckhout at 44% to win the House seat, while Dem. Don Davis is at 63%. The market, which will be decided Nov. 3, has received nearly $75,000 in volume.
Buckhout, a retired Army colonel who served in Iraq and was briefly the assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy for the President Donald Trump administration, led the race’s odds in October 2025, but Davis took over the lead in May.
Buckhout is among an increasing list of high-profile political figures to have violated the trading exchange’s rules as insider trading has become a growing concern.
Former U.S. Congressman George Santos received a lifetime Kalshi ban and a $71,356 fine for manipulating markets, the operator also announced on Monday.
In other prediction market news, White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez was recently fined $65,000 by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which federally regulates prediction markets.
