Kalshi Names MrBeast Editor & Former California Gubernatorial Candidate in Insider Trading Cases

Kalshi announced on Wednesday that it had taken action against two individuals for violating its insider trading rules. The prediction market identified the traders as Artem Kaptur and Kyle Langford in newly posted disciplinary notices. 

The announcement came on the same day the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Division of Enforcement issued an advisory saying it has full authority to police fraud, manipulation, and the misuse of material non-public information in prediction markets traded on designated contract markets, such as Kalshi.

In a statement posted to its website and on X, Kalshi’s head of enforcement, Robert DeNault, explained the two cases, saying one involved a former candidate for governor in California who traded about $200 on his own candidacy and then promoted the trade on social media. 

The other case involved a trader who put about $4,000 into markets tied to a popular YouTuber. Kalshi said its surveillance systems flagged both accounts, which were reported to the CFTC and frozen during the investigation. 

In its enforcement advisory, the CFTC said that Kalshi had imposed a $2,246.36 “financial penalty” and a five-year suspension on Langford, while Kaptur received a $20,397.58 penalty and a two-year suspension. The agency added that both cases could potentially violate federal anti-fraud rules under the Commodity Exchange Act.

Kalshi: Langford & Kaptur Broke Exchange Rules

In a “Notice of Disciplinary Action” published on its website, Kalshi identifies Langford as the trader in the political case. According to the exchange, Langford had already announced his candidacy when he was added as a market option in May 2025. 

Kalshi’s disciplinary committee says Langford placed two trades on that contract and wasn’t shy about it, promoting what he’d done on social media. 

He placed the trades even though he knew Kalshi’s rules prohibit trading on an event over which a person has direct influence. Kalshi said that during a phone call with its compliance and legal teams, Langford admitted the trades were “improper” and violated the prediction market’s rules. 

In the second case, Kalshi identifies the trader as Kaptur. The exchange says that Kaptur placed trades in August and September 2025 on event contracts tied to a YouTube channel. His case was flagged because he’d racked up a “near-perfect” record trading on “markets with low odds,” the company said. 

According to Kaptur’s Notice of Disciplinary Action, Kalshi’s disciplinary committee “found reasonable cause to conclude Kaptur traded while employed by or legally affiliated with a Source Agency for ‘Mr. Beast’ contracts.” The company concluded he had traded on material, non-public information obtained through his role and also violated exchange rules when he refused to cooperate with the investigation. 

Maduro Trade Helped Expose Insider Trading

Since the beginning of this year, prediction markets have come under increased public scrutiny for insider trading following “improbable” trades on Polymarket’s offshore platform.

In January 2026, controversy ensued after three newly created wallets netted hundreds of thousands of dollars betting on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro just hours before the U.S. operation became public. While these trades were placed on an unregulated international exchange, they sparked a national debate over the integrity and security of prediction markets. 

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour has used this contrast to position his exchange as the “leader” in market policing, very publicly distancing his company from unregulated offshore competitors. While Polymarket’s CEO, Shayne Coplan, has suggested that an insider “edge” can improve market accuracy, Mansour has taken a strong position against that philosophy, arguing that insider trading “erodes trust” and kills market liquidity. 

Wednesday’s disclosures, along with the CFTC’s advisory, show that Kalshi is ready to make its case publicly that its platform is setting the standard in the compliance space and that, as a CFTC-regulated prediction market, it takes potential insider trading seriously and is willing to act on it.

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 Kalshi announced on Wednesday that it had taken action against two individuals for violating its insider trading rules. The prediction market identified the traders as Artem Kaptur and Kyle Langford in newly posted disciplinary notices.  The announcement came on the same day the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Division of Enforcement issued an advisory saying
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