According to the New York Times, prediction market Kalshi has taken punitive steps against three current or former candidates for national office accused of insider trading. The list includes Minnesota Democrat Matt Klein, who is running for Congress, and Texas Republican Ezequiel Enriquez, who previously ran for Congress.
And then there’s Mark Moran, whose clips have gotten a lot of airplay this primary season because of his eccentric speech cadence and his entire demeanor:
Moran, an independent candidate for Senate from Virginia who was once running as a Democrat, apparently placed a calamitous bet on himself. He does not dispute this and says he deposited the $100.
He was also once a contestant on the reality dating show FBoy Island.
Kalshi’s enforcement chief, Bobby Denault, told the Times that these candidates had violated new rules Against this kind of activity. In Moran’s “Notice of Disciplinary Action” posted online, the violation is explained in useful, simple language:
“If a trader is, or has, directly or indirectly, any influence, no matter the scale and significance of the effect, on the outcome of the underlying (event) of any contract, that trader is prohibited from attempting to enter into any trade, directly or indirectly, on the market in such contracts.”
Moran apparently cooperated with their investigation at some point and “admitted that these trades were improper and in violation of Kalshi exchange rules,” but “repeatedly refused to resolve the matter through settlement and stopped responding to further correspondence,” and was fined $6,229.30 – the largest fine of the three candidates.
“They wanted me to make a public statement, a tweet, acknowledging it,” Moran told the Times, which he says he sees as participating in the marketing of Kalshi.
Furthermore, Moran claimed to the Times that this was always his plan. He knew the public would find out about his bets, he told them, but he expected that if caught, the prediction market would be exposed as “dangerous to our democracy.”
He apparently spoke more in his Times interview, saying, “It’s almost ridiculous that it was so easy to get attention for this.” Who can argue?
At the time of this writing, he had begun posting rapidly on X, telling the same story he told the Times, and taking credit for the massive media victory.
Kalshi today accused me of insider trading in the market, after my request, their politics head included me in it… after it became public knowledge that I was going to run away…
*All screenshots in video for journalists*
For $100 I got NYT, WSJ, Washington Post, AP, Bloomberg,… https://t.co/9o6wgwSOFA pic.twitter.com/GTIsCmBX0u
– Mark Moran for US Senate (@itsmarkmoran) 23 April 2026
Kalshi, for his part, faces perhaps 20 civil lawsuits, and was charged last month in Arizona with alleged illegal betting and betting-related crimes, including “electioneering.” Mike Selig, chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, disputed the need for charges, saying the Kalshi case is a “jurisdictional dispute and is completely inappropriate as a criminal prosecution.”
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