State of the Union is the annual presidential address outlining priorities and the political climate; current news focuses on its use as a political benchmark and the surrounding scrutiny of election-season messaging.
Federal investigators are examining whether George Santos placed bets on Kalshi about his own attendance at the State of the Union, with the trades flagged by the market and referred to the DOJ and CFTC. Santos has previously been convicted and pardoned, and his current status is under scrutiny as prediction markets face regulatory pressure.
Kalshi has started collecting job information to screen markets at heightened risk of manipulation and is rolling out a risk-scoring system plus 24/7 whistleblower channel. The measures aim to curb insider trading after a string of cases across Kalshi and Polymarket, including investigations into George Santos and a Google insider-trading case.
The former New York representative has been announced as a contestant on Fox’s fifth season of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, set to air in September. The show will test participants with extreme military-style challenges in a Malaysian jungle, pitting Santos against other celebrities and athletes. Santos has faced criminal charges and was expelled from Congress after fabricating parts of his life story.
The White House has placed Gabriel Perez, a teleprompter operator who has worked for the president since 2016, on unpaid administrative leave after Kalshi flagged suspicious bets tied to words in presidential speeches. Kalshi has referred trades to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and has frozen more than $90,000 in accounts while regulators investigate.
Regulators in France and the United States are clamping down on online prediction markets amid worries about betting on real-world events and misuse of information. France blocks Polymarket’s site for advertising, while ANJ warns fines could reach 100,000 euros. Separate cases involve a teleprompter operator accused of betting on Trump speeches and a US soldier charged over bets tied to a Maduro operation.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has settled with George Santos, banning him from trading for three years, and ordering him to forfeit more than $17,000 and pay a $17,500 penalty for trading on Kalshi bets about the State of the Union attendance. Santos’s lawyer says the resolution puts this matter behind him, with no admission of wrongdoing.