Former Republican congressman George Santos has agreed to pay more than $35,000 in fines and is temporarily barred from trading on Kalshi after federal regulators concluded he unlawfully manipulated a prediction market.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced Friday that Santos will pay a $17,500 civil penalty and forfeit an additional $17,570 in profits under a settlement resolving allegations that he improperly profited from trades tied to his attendance at President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in February. He is also banned from trading on the prediction market Kalshi for three years.
The case stems from bets Santos placed on whether he would attend Trump’s address to Congress in February. Santos publicly indicated he planned to attend the speech while also placing trades on Kalshi predicting that he would not appear. He later announced on the night of the address in a post on X that he would miss the event.
Kalshi flagged the unusual trading activity and referred the matter to federal authorities, including the CFTC, which opened an investigation in June.
“Mr. Santos has agreed to resolve the CFT’s inquiry and to put this matter behind him. Critically, and consistent with how these regulatory matters are commonly resolved, Mr. Santos has settled without admitting any of the Commission’s allegations, findings, or conclusions,” Santos’ attorney, Joseph W. Murray, said in statement.
Murray said Santos chose “a prompt, practical resolution rather than protracted, costly litigation.”
The case adds to a growing list of enforcement actions involving the fast-growing prediction market industry, where users can wager on the outcomes on a number of topics, including court decisions, sports and political elections. Earlier this year, Kalshi fined and suspended three congressional candidates for betting on their own races.
The CFTC has also made policing insider trading a top priority as Congress considers new restrictions on the industry, including limits on participation by elected officials and government employees.
Santos, a New York Republican who was expelled from Congress in 2023, has faced a string of legal troubles since leaving office. President Donald Trump commuted Santos’ prison sentence in October 2025, securing his release after he had served less than three months of an 87-month term for fraud and identity theft in an unrelated campaign finance case.
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