US Senate Candidate Caught Insider Trading on Kalshi Says He Did It on Purpose
Kalshi announced on Wednesday that it had taken action against three American politicians for violating the prediction market platform’s rules regarding insider trading. One of the contestants, Mark Moran, a former investment banker and reality TV show contestant FBoy Islandis running a long-running campaign for U.S. Senate in Virginia against incumbent Mark Warner. According to Moran, getting caught was actually his plan all along: “I bet $100 on myself, I’m not denying it, I did it,” he told WIRED. “I wanted to see if they would enforce it.”
Moran says he was inspired to pull off the stunt after observing what he thought was market manipulation on Polymarket related to the 2025 New York City mayoral race. The intended goal, he says, was to raise awareness of how prediction markets “contribute to the continued development of our society.” Describing his decision, Moran presented it as a kind of avant-garde campaign tactic that tested the limits of the “any press is good press” credo. “I’ve been waiting for months for someone to show interest in me,” Moran said. “Because in politics, money gets attention, but I know how to get it organically. It only costs $100 to call you, right?”
In a notice of disciplinary action against Moran that the company sent to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Kalshi claimed the politician purchased event contracts on markets linked to his own candidacy and promoted them on social media. Kalshi noted that he fined Moran $6,229.30 and banned him from the platform for five years after he “refused to resolve the issue through settlement.”
Moran claims he stopped talking to Kalshi because he objected to the company’s settlement terms. “They wanted me to make a public statement,” he said. That’s what I pushed back on, it’s a violation of my First Amendment rights, to force my speech. » (Public statements are often included in the terms of legal agreements.) Kalshi declined to comment.
The other two enforcement actions Kalshi announced today, against congressional candidates in the Minnesota Democratic Primary and the Texas Republican Primary, were settled after the defendants paid smaller fines. In another set of cases announced in February, Kalshi revealed that he had fined far-right Republican politician and former California gubernatorial candidate Kyle Langford for market manipulation. In an interview with WIRED, Langford described his exchanges as a “campaign gimmick.”
Moran says if elected, he plans to work on legislation to strengthen guardrails around prediction markets. A nationwide political battle is currently underway over what rules the industry should be required to follow. A number of states have filed lawsuits against leading companies in the field, alleging they operated unlicensed gaming operations.
There are also growing concerns about insider trading in political markets. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order Wednesday prohibiting state government employees from engaging in insider trading, following similar orders in California and Illinois.
Despite changing his affiliation from Democrat to Independent earlier this month, Moran is still listed as a candidate in Kalshi’s market for the Virginia Democratic primary. His chances are currently 1 percent.
