The prediction market platform Kalshi will soon require users to disclose their employers before they place certain trades that involve sensitive information, the company confirmed to NBC News on Tuesday.
The new requirement will apply to markets deemed at higher risk for insider trading or market manipulation, according to Kalshi.
Markets that could trigger the requirement include those tied to corporate performance, national security and major geopolitical events, including the Iran war.
Users subject to the requirement will be asked to submit employment information through an online form. A spokesperson said Kalshi will not verify employment unless an investigation is warranted, although there could be certain instances when people are blocked from trading particular contracts based on their employment.
Kalshi said one example might be a Google employee seeking to trade on a Google-related prediction market — a scenario that actually played out at Kalshi’s top competitor, Polymarket, last month. The employee was accused of using confidential Google search data to place trades and charged with insider trading.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the changes at Kalshi.
Prediction markets face growing scrutiny over insider trading and market manipulation, particularly around elections.
Kalshi fined and suspended three political candidates this year for trading on their own elections — conduct it described at the time as “political insider trading.”
Alongside the new employer-disclosure requirements, Kalshi also announced a series of what it called “market integrity” updates, including a “risk scoring framework” designed to identify markets with elevated insider trading risk.
The framework will also assess whether markets pose potential national security concerns. While Kalshi does not allow markets on war, assassination or violence, it said some leadership and foreign policy markets can still present “incidental national security concerns.”
“By running an assessment on the national security risk a market might present before we list it, we can better prevent dangerous events from having a negative effect on our markets — or vice versa,” Robert DeNault, head of enforcement at Kalshi, wrote in a blog post.
Other measures include expanded whistleblower tools that allow users to report suspicious activity directly to the company’s surveillance team, which will monitor the feed 24/7.
“Prediction markets need to be safe spaces to trade,” DeNault said. “And Kalshi is committed to leading the industry on market integrity.”
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has so far taken the lead in regulating prediction markets, under the theory that event contract exchanges are much like the other commodities exchanges it regulates.
But Kalshi says it has been effectively policing itself, too.
It confirmed Tuesday that it has opened more than 150 investigations this year, blocked more than 100 potential insider trades using new screening tools, referred more than 20 cases to law enforcement and taken five disciplinary actions.
U.S. laws prohibit insider trading, and the CFTC conducts platform surveillance. However, while the CFTC has asserted broad federal authority over prediction markets, several states have also brought their own civil cases against events-based exchanges, alleging they violate state gambling statutes.
