Kalshi Probes Well-Timed Bets on Trump’s Surprise New Hire
Some people guessed Trump’s choice of press secretary correctly and made money from it. What are the odds?
Katie Zacharia/X
The Kalshi prediction market has reportedly launched an investigation into a series of bets on Donald Trump’s startling new selection of Katie Zacharia as his White House press secretary.
Conservative commentator Zacharia, 41, was widely seen as having only a 1 percent chance of becoming the new press secretary. Then on Thursday night and Friday—before Trump made any announcement—three traders placed bets on her chances on the Kalshi platform, The Wall Street Journal reported. Such activity can raise suspicions about insider information that can skew the betting market—just as inside information about business can hand a huge, unfair advantage to stock traders.
New White House press secretary Katie Zacharia was the subject of well-timed bets that have triggered a probe.
Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for 2521 Entertainm
The “small but well-timed wagers” on Zacharia were placed on the Kalshi platform before news of Trump’s choice emerged, providing an opportunity for the bettors to make thousands of dollars, the Journal reported Friday.
One $19 bet placed Thursday night was slated to pay out 99 times the wager, or $1,896, according to the Journal. Bets of $74 and $80 placed Friday were expected to pay out $3,689 and $4,023, respectively, the newspaper reported.
Prediction markets have created the possibility for people in the know to capitalize on information that is not publicly available, creating what can amount to a rigged system.
The White House recently fired Trump’s teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez after he collected more than $100,000 on bets about the president’s speeches, to which he had early access. Perez reached a settlement agreement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission two months ago.
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Meanwhile, some of the stock trades made by the president’s business accounts benefited from federal policy he had yet to announce. Trump accounts made 517 securities trades in August, for a total of up to $273 million, according to records.
Meta Platforms was the largest trade, involving the purchase of $5 million to $25 million on August 21, CNBC reported this week. Trump accounts also bought $1 million to $5 million of SpaceX notes, corporate IOUs paying 5.35 percent a year until July 2031. Just two days later, Trump signed a national space transportation policy memorandum calling for the U.S. to support more than 1,000 launches and re-entries annually by 2030. He didn’t name SpaceX, but the company is a NASA launch provider, and would profit hugely from such a policy.
The White House on Thursday insisted to CNBC that Trump does not direct the trades. Spokesman Davis Ingle told CNBC the portfolio is independently managed.
Previous presidents have typically divested from investments with potential conflicts of interest, or used blind trusts so a president would be unaware if his actions in the White House might bolster his assets.
Donald Trump Jr. has come under scrutiny for launching or becoming involved with companies that have benefited from his dad’s policies. The company 1789 Capital’s management of some roughly $150 million in investment zoomed to more than $3 billion after Trump Jr. joined, noted Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who has called for an investigation into the relationship.
The firm has “developed an uncanny ability to identify companies that are about to receive massive influxes of cash from the Trump Administration or to benefit from significant changes in federal policies and regulations,” Raskin added.
The White House earlier this year sent a memo to staffers warning them against capitalizing on nonpublic information to make money on gambling, after a series of curiously well-timed bets on issues linked to as yet unannounced public policy.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Kalshi, the White House and Donald Trump Jr. for comment.
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