Former Republican congressman George Santos is under federal investigation for insider trading on the prediction market site Kalshi, according to three people with direct knowledge of his trades who spoke to NPR. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Justice Department have both opened investigations after Kalshi detected the trading activity, froze Santos’s account, and referred the case, according to a person familiar with Kalshi’s investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The probe centers on Santos’s conduct around President Trump’s State of the Union address in February. On the day before the speech, Santos posted a video on X saying he would be in the gallery. Traders on Kalshi had placed millions of dollars in bets on which public figures would attend. The odds that Santos would show up rose sharply after his announcement.
But Santos did not attend. While Trump was speaking, Santos posted on X that he was watching from an airport television. The Kalshi market odds that he would appear collapsed.
According to three people with direct knowledge of his trades, Santos had already placed bets on Kalshi that he would not attend the State of the Union address. Those bets paid off when he failed to appear, netting him a profit in the tens of thousands of dollars, the people said. They said Santos misled the public and traded based on his own foreknowledge of his plans.
Reached by NPR, Santos said, “Well, that’s news to me,” when asked about the insider trading investigation. He did not confirm or deny having a Kalshi account, telling NPR, “I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no.” Santos claimed that Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara is a “fellow Brazilian” he knows personally and said he would call her to find out whether an investigation had been launched. He did not respond to NPR’s follow-up messages. The person familiar with Kalshi’s investigation said Santos does not know Lara.
The same person said Kalshi has reached out to Santos to interview him as part of its internal investigation, but he has dodged those requests.
Neither the CFTC nor the Justice Department returned NPR’s requests for comment. Kalshi declined to comment.
The investigation is the latest legal entanglement for Santos, 37, whose political career collapsed after a series of fabrications about his background. He was expelled from Congress in late 2023 after being indicted on 13 federal counts of wire fraud, money laundering, and theft from political donors. A judge sentenced him to more than seven years in prison, but he served only four months before Trump commuted the sentence last October. In a post at the time, Trump called Santos a “rogue.”
The case comes amid a broader crackdown on insider trading on prediction markets. In April, federal prosecutors charged a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier with using classified information to win more than $400,000 betting on the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Polymarket. Last week, the Justice Department charged a Google employee with making more than $1 million correctly betting on search trends based on confidential company information on the same platform.
During the State of the Union address, Kalshi traders who had bet that Santos would attend expressed anger on the messaging forum Discord. One user wrote after losing money, “I want George Santos in Kalshi prison for 15 years!!!” Another wrote, “that’s gotta be a new low if you get rugpulled by George Santos.”