Kalshi bans ex-congressman George Santos from prediction platform for life

Santos was accused of profiting from bets tied to his attendance at Trump’s State of the Union address George Santos, the former Republican congressman whose political career collapsed under a mountain of lies, has become the first person ever handed a lifetime ban by the prediction-market platform Kalshi. The company announced the permanent suspension on Monday, along with a $71,356 fine, after federal regulators accused Santos of profiting from bets tied to his own attendance at Donald Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year. A Kalshi spokeswoman said Santos’s refusal to cooperate fully with the platform’s internal investigation was what pushed the penalty from temporary to permanent. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) alleges that Santos exploited stormy weather forecasts that threatened to disrupt his travel to Washington in February. According to the agency, he bought Kalshi contracts betting he would miss the speech, then posted social media updates suggesting he planned to attend after all, driving up the value of contracts he held on the opposite outcome and allowing him to cash out at a profit. Regulators concluded he had improperly traded on an e