Federal authorities are investigating whether disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos engaged in insider trading by betting on a prediction market on his own attendance to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, multiple news outlets reported Tuesday.
Santos allegedly placed a bet on Kalshi, the popular online prediction platform, over whether he would be present at Trump’s address in February, according to NPR, which first reported the investigation citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. The Department of Justice is probing the matter, sources confirmed to several other news organizations.
Santos had posted on social media that he intended to attend the address before telling his followers that travel difficulties had forced him to cancel those plans)Skip — a sequence that would have given Santos non-public knowledge about the outcome of a bet structured around his own attendance.
Kalshi flagged the trade to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Associated Press reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Neither Kalshi nor the CFTC responded to requests for comment.
When NPR asked whether he had a Kalshi account, Santos said, “I’m not saying yes. I’m not saying no.” In a subsequent post on X, Santos wrote, “I hate to disappoint but I don’t engage with rag reporting anymore,” appearing to reference the reports. “Business as usual on my end haters!” he added.
Santos served a brief and turbulent tenure representing New York’s third congressional district. He was expelled from the House in December 2023 after a bipartisan ethics committee report detailed how he used campaign funds for personal purchases including travel, cosmetic procedures and luxury goods. In April 2025, Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Months later, Trump commuted his sentence.
The investigation adds to mounting scrutiny of prediction-market platforms over concerns about insider trading. Questions have emerged in recent months about well-timed, profitable bets on geopolitical events on both Kalshi and Polymarket. In April, Kalshi fined and suspended three congressional candidates who had bet on their own election races. That same month, a U.S. soldier involved in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro was taken into custody over bets he made about the deposed head of state on Polymarket, and federal prosecutors charged a Google engineer with insider trading on Polymarket making use of non-public information.
Lawmakers have taken notice. The Senate in May banned its members and staff from betting in prediction markets.