Bloomberg Surveillance · Friday, August 14, 2026
Robert Deanlt states that Kalshi prohibits candidates and campaign staff from trading on election markets to prevent manipulation. While acknowledging the potential for large wagers to influence prices, he notes that the market often corrects itself, citing an example in the LA mayor's race where a large bet on Spencer Pratt was quickly counteracted.
“At KUSHI, we prohibit candidates or people who work on campaigns from trading on elections, and we do that both proactively by investigating markets, but also by screening them from placing trades. So we take FEC data or other data to screen candidates and other individuals that have onboarded from even placing trades in these markets where we can. But I think apart from that, there is of course market correction, and we saw this in the LA mayor's race. There was an individual who came in and placed a very large trade on Spencer Pratt. And you know, I can't prognosticate about what this person's motive was for placing that trade, but it was over a million dollars, and it was within a single afternoon, and so their motive may have been to try to move his odds up higher and skew them from. What reality actually was.”
“And the truth is the market corrected that price point within nine seconds. And so where there's an opportunity for other traders to come in and make money off someone whose motive might be not price related, that is an opportunity to profit in a prediction market context, if it.”