Three congressional candidates are facing penalties after Kalshi said it fined and suspended them for betting on the outcomes of their own campaigns, according to disciplinary documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Kalshi said it disciplined Mark Moran, an independent running for Virginia’s U.S. Senate seat; Ezekiel Enriquez, who ran in a Texas Republican primary for a U.S. House seat; and Matt Klein, a Democratic state senator running for a U.S. House seat in Minnesota. The company said the punishments included five-year suspensions from Kalshi, and the fines varied based on whether the candidates agreed to settlements.
Kalshi’s disciplinary documents named Moran, Enriquez and Klein and described their wagers as tied to their “own candidacy,” the company said. The Associated Press reported that Klein and Enriquez placed bets of less than $100, while Moran publicly acknowledged on social media that he had “traded $100 on myself.”
Moran disputed Kalshi’s framing and instead said his bet was intended as a form of attention to what he described as unjust sway prediction-market platforms can exert over elections. In an interview with The Associated Press, Moran said he met with Kalshi and asked that his name appear on the company’s website, and he said he was fined more than the other candidates because he refused to reach an agreement that would have required him to post a statement on X.
Moran’s comments to The Associated Press described the bet as a strategy to draw public focus. He said, “When I piss people off, when I upset people, and when I captivate their attention, that’s when they have to start listening.”
Klein confirmed Kalshi’s findings in a separate post on social media, and he said in his statement that the $50 wager he placed in October was his first use of a prediction market and that he was “curious about how it worked.” Klein said, “This was a mistake and I apologize,” and he added that the experience made him believe the markets need more regulation.
Klein also said he faced the same Kalshi penalties after reaching an agreement with the company. The Associated Press reported that Klein is a co-sponsor of legislation in the Minnesota Legislature to ban most wagering on prediction markets, including wagers on the outcome of elections, and he said he did not see an inconsistency between sponsoring the bill and betting $50 on himself to win his primary. In an interview with The Associated Press, Klein said he spent the winter learning about prediction markets and signed onto the bill before he learned that his bet violated Kalshi’s rules.
Enriquez, known as Zeke, lost his House race in early March with less than two percent of the vote, according to The Associated Press. The report said that contact information for Enriquez was not immediately found to request comment.
The Kalshi disciplinary actions follow wider controversy around prediction markets, including alleged insider trading concerns that have drawn bipartisan scrutiny from members of Congress and calls for tighter regulation. Kalshi’s disciplinary documents and the Associated Press report also pointed to earlier high-profile wagers on prediction markets earlier this year, including an instance in which an anonymous Polymarket user made a $400,000 profit in January on a wager about former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s political status.
Some politicians criticized the penalties as insufficient. U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, a California Democrat, said on social media that the punishments did not go far enough, writing, “That’s not a punishment. That’s a parking ticket.”
Separately, the Associated Press report noted that Kalshi’s agreements were with the company rather than with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates prediction markets and is chaired by Michael Selig, whom the report said is considered friendly to the prediction-market industry.