2026-09-24T09:00:30.405Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
丹·罗加尔斯基从中学起就痴迷选举。他回忆道，童年时自己不常出门旅行，所以选举是“了解不同地区的有趣方式”。
他拥有数学学士学位，如今在西雅图担任软件工程师。但他表示，预测市场“有利可图”——人们可以在这类平台上押注体育、娱乐、天气等各类事件，罗加尔斯基押注的则是选举。
“我在网上见过很多糟糕的分析，”24岁的罗加尔斯基说，“所以我觉得自己能比那些人做得更好。”
自开始交易以来，罗加尔斯基在多个平台累计获利60万美元，截至周四，他在Kalshi平台的选举交易商排行榜上位列第20名。据CNN对公开数据的分析，他是Kalshi及其主要竞争对手Polymarket上2026年选举市场累计7.5亿多美元交易量的参与者之一。
对20名参与选举和预测网站工作的人士进行采访后发现，这类押注正在扰乱中期选举的几乎所有环节——从竞选活动、选举官员、选民、捐赠者到交易商本身。许多人将此次选举称为“首次预测市场选举”。
多名选举官员告诉CNN，预测平台正在催生新一轮虚假信息，并为其办公室内部可能出现的内幕交易制造风险。
洛杉矶县最高选举官员迪恩·洛根表示，尽管选举市场是合法的，但他希望它们彻底消失。他说，作为全美最大的选举办公室，其在6月洛杉矶市长初选后，遭遇了一波由预测推波助澜的“破坏性”虚假信息潮。
他对预测公司的表态是：“别这么做，”他说，“别掺和这个领域。你们大可以去其他领域施展拳脚，但这里真的不适合你们。”
竞选团队表示，这类市场是他们需要应对的新型“背景噪音”，尽管市场并不总能准确预测结果，但它们能提供实时的公众情绪晴雨表。
尽管如此，一些政治幕僚承认他们会密切关注自己阵营的赔率。一名消息人士告诉CNN，他们见过一名候选人“几乎每小时都要查看自己参选选区的市场赔率”。
CNN与Kalshi存在合作关系，并使用其数据报道重大事件。CNN的编辑人员不允许在预测市场进行交易。
预测公司表示，其平台通过利用“群体智慧”来获取关于选举结果的无偏洞察——他们称这比民调更可靠，从而提供了一项公共服务。
“选举预测市场校准得很好，”Kalshi负责政治业务增长的负责人本杰明·弗里曼在接受CNN采访时表示，“民调是滞后的，执行成本高昂，还可能存在偏差。而市场始终处于实时状态，全天24小时运转，能比民调更快地将新信息纳入定价。”
Polymarket的一位发言人在一份声明中表示：“我们提供关于重要事件的透明、准确的实时信息——这是对毒化公众对话的虚假信息的解药。公众有权获取这类信息，就像有权获取民调结果一样，只不过我们的信息更准确。”
为了最大化用户参与度和自身利润，Kalshi和Polymarket几乎为2026年中期选举的每一个环节都设立了交易市场。
数百个可用市场涵盖了所有众议院和参议院竞选，甚至包括一些小众问题，比如是否会有重要背书公布，乃至中期选举是否会“按时举行”。
截至本周，Kalshi和Polymarket上的“谁将掌控国会”市场累计交易量达3200万美元。但大量受关注的众议院摇摆选区的交易量不足10万美元。
小众选举市场已经存在了数十年，2024年联邦上诉法院为Kalshi开展更广泛的当年总统选举交易扫清了道路。但预测市场从未像现在这样在美国文化中无处不在，且交易量在过去一年中大幅飙升。
尽管选举市场有所增长，但超过80%的预测业务仍来自体育赛事。交易活动来自休闲散户、新晋日内交易者和大型商业机构。
“我们不做体育，不想掺和那摊浑水，”Interactive Brokers集团（一家为预测交易提供服务的经纪公司）的副主席厄尔·内姆瑟说，“但选举结果会产生重大的全球影响。保险公司和个人通过押注对冲风险至关重要。”
一些选举官员表示，在他们已经要应对特朗普政府带来的新威胁、选举工作人员倦怠以及多年来的虚假信息之际，预测市场热潮又带来了新的麻烦。
另一些人，比如北卡罗来纳州达勒姆县的选举总监德里克·鲍恩斯，则表示这是“我们不得不面对的现实”，尽管他担心预测网站会“损害人们对选举制度的信心”。
预测市场议题被纳入了7月的一场专业会议议程，来自全美各地的选举官员在会上交流了11月选举的应对策略。在此次会议及后续采访中，官员们告诉CNN，他们担心预测市场甚至会压低投票率，因为如果选民支持的候选人获胜赔率极低，他们可能就不会去投票。
“人们将博彩市场视为谁将获胜的指示器，这很危险，”密歇根州英厄姆县（包括兰辛市）的选举书记员芭布·拜勒姆说，“这些人只是为了赚钱，不过是臆测而已。真正的结果由选民决定。”
Kalshi驳斥了诸多此类担忧。弗里曼表示，预测网站可以通过吸引新选民——尤其是喜欢交易的年轻选民——来提高投票率。他还表示，预测平台为个人和企业提供了在公平公开的市场中为“政治结果对冲风险”的途径。
选举官员最担心的是，预测网站会为大规模选民欺诈和选举被操纵的虚假信息开辟新渠道。而这方面已经有了一个典型案例：洛杉矶市长初选。
在竞选的大部分时间里，预测市场都显示民主党市长凯伦·巴斯将与共和党候选人斯宾塞·普拉特一同进入大选。普拉特是前真人秀明星，在网上拥有大量狂热追随者。
巴斯的竞选团队也希望普拉特出线，认为他是11月大选的弱势对手。一名巴斯竞选团队的盟友告诉CNN，押注市场可能助长了团队的过度自信。（巴斯的发言人亚历克斯·斯塔克表示，预测市场只是“背景噪音”，并未影响竞选策略。）
在6月2日初选后的一周里，选举工作人员逐步清点了超过85万张选票，普拉特从第二名跌至第三名，无缘大选。
失望的普拉特支持者援引预测市场的结果，声称选举被操纵。更糟糕的是，Kalshi和Polymarket的付费社交媒体 influencers 被发现散布关于可疑“迟到”选票和“几乎不可能”的投票总数的虚假阴谋论。
“这产生了真正的负面影响，”洛杉矶县选举官员洛根说，“我们花了大量时间来驳斥关于我们选举程序安全性和准确性的错误信息。”
预测市场也成为民调机构需要考虑的新因素——而且并不总是积极的影响。在巴斯8月发布的一则显示其“势头强劲”的民调后，市场行情出现波动，但后来证实该民调是伪造的，其发起方称这是一场“社会实验”。
让选民更加困惑的是，Kalshi在选举夜会用精致的社交媒体图形“预测”获胜者。Polymarket也用“预测”一词来描述其市场上的赔率，采用了与CNN等新闻机构相同的术语——但方法论却大相径庭。
新闻机构会聘请统计学家，利用数学模型从真实计票结果中预测获胜者。弗里曼表示，Kalshi会在投票结束后，当某一候选人的获胜赔率达到99%并持续一段时间时，“预测”其获胜。
“这些并非媒体所做的正式预测，”弗里曼告诉CNN，“在这些图形的小字说明中，我们明确表示这并非官方预测。”
今年预测市场的另一个重大失误出现在8月威斯康星州州长民主党初选。州众议员弗朗西斯卡·洪在选举日前的交易赔率约为95%，但最终以重大爆冷输给了密尔沃基县行政长官戴维·克劳利，这一结果也与民调结果相悖。
洪的竞选团队前发言人艾莉森·盖耶表示，市场“从未纳入我们的战略考量”，并且“即便传统民调 consistently 显示我们处于领先位置，我们也从未掉以轻心”。
其他在预测平台上被大幅看好的候选人也在夏威夷和德州失利。Kalshi的交易员曾给密歇根州民主党人阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德97%的初选获胜赔率——他确实赢了，但优势微弱，不到1%。
“这是首次预测市场选举，”26岁的交易员尼古拉斯·亚格今年获利130万美元，“市场表现相当不错……威斯康星州是个例外。对公众来说，看到高概率事件未能成真，可能会相当震惊。”
Kalshi表示，在一个公平的市场中，弱势一方偶尔也会获胜。威斯康星州事件后，联合创始人路易莎·洛佩斯·拉拉发帖称：“5%不等于0%。”
博彩市场已经渗透到竞选文化中。
一名民主党幕僚表示，一些工作人员会密切关注市场，寻找强劲辩论表现带来的赔率上涨，或是负面新闻导致的赔率下跌。
但他们也指出，预测网站无法提供在哪些媒体市场投放哪些电视广告的相关见解。另一名幕僚表示，他们从民调以及挨家挨户拉票和打电话拉票的“直观感受”中获得了更多价值。
“如果我说我没看过Kalshi的市场，那是在撒谎，但它并不会左右我们的决策，”其中一名幕僚说道。
美国政治顾问协会副主席凯利·吉布森表示，她担心预测市场上的有利赔率会诱使竞选团队陷入“虚假的安全感”，误以为自己稳操胜券。“这就像流沙，”她说。
一些候选人公开从预测市场中汲取信心。
本月早些时候的得克萨斯州铁路委员会竞选就出现了这种情况。共和党候选人博·弗伦奇发表了一篇针对南亚大学橄榄球球迷的仇外帖子，引发两党反弹。他的民主党对手乔恩·罗森塔尔在X平台上写道：“我现在是热门候选人了”，并附上了自己在Kalshi平台上52%的赔率。
博彩市场也让捐赠界感到不安。
另一名曾参与一场竞争性参议院初选的民主党幕僚表示，他们觉得必须追踪预测市场，因为一些捐赠者会关注这些市场。
“这又多了一件让他们焦虑的事，”这名幕僚说。
因此，竞选团队会淡化市场的影响，分享内部民调或预告即将到来的利好消息，比如重磅背书，以此安抚捐赠者的担忧。
民主党媒体顾问吉布森表示，她听说有顾问不得不劝说捐赠者——尤其是科技行业的捐赠者——不要根据预测市场的行情来做出投资决策。
预测网站的扩张意味着，竞选团队工作人员或选举工作人员现在比以往任何时候都更容易利用内幕消息非法获利——比如即将曝光的丑闻，或是午夜突然出现的票仓变化。
首批政治内幕交易案件于4月曝光，Kalshi对三名押注自身参选选区的小众候选人处以罚款并暂停其交易资格。外界猜测还会有更多案件，甚至有一些竞选幕僚匿名向媒体吹嘘自己赚了钱。
Kalshi上月披露了几起新案件，其中最引人注目的是北卡罗来纳州一场众议院摇摆选区的共和党候选人劳里·巴克哈特。巴克哈特为自己的“愚蠢错误”道歉，和其他交易者一样，她只押注了少量资金，并缴纳了约2600美元的小额罚款。
法律专家表示，这些案件和其他案件（比如白宫提词器操作员案）中的处罚力度不足以形成威慑。Kalshi的负责人表示，罚款通常遵循联邦法律中针对证券和商品欺诈处罚的既定公式。
“如果由我决定，我们会对每一起案件重拳出击，以阻止任何人再次从事不当行为，”Kalshi的执法负责人鲍比·德诺特告诉CNN，“但在违规行为发生时，我们传统上并不这么考虑执法方式。”
德诺特表示，作为防范和查处内幕交易的内部保障措施之一，该公司会检索竞选工作人员的公开记录，并阻止他们在相关市场进行交易。
Polymarket的一位发言人在声明中表示：“我们通过持续监控、明确禁止操纵和滥用的规则，以及经验丰富的调查团队来保护我们的市场。”
接受CNN采访的选举官员表示，他们已经开始在为11月选举培训工作人员和选举工作人员时，加入反对内幕交易的警告。一些县已经正式禁止选举人员参与选举押注。
“裁判不能押注体育比赛，选举官员和选举工作人员也不能押注选举，”兰辛市的选举官员拜勒姆说，“这就是我们在书记员培训中传达的信息。”
初选季期间，绝大多数市场都顺利结算，没有任何操纵或内幕交易的迹象。
但阿拉斯加州标志性参议院竞选的一起纠纷引发了人们对11月选举可能出现状况的担忧。届时，Kalshi和Polymarket将在混乱的选举后结算数千个市场，而新闻机构和选举官员将逐步公布选举结果并认证最终计票结果。
一些交易员抱怨称，在随后几天出现大量候选人退出并被替换的情况下，Kalshi在阿拉斯加州前四初选市场的结算操作不当。
Kalshi为其结算方式辩护，称其依据的是最终进入大选的候选人名单。但一些交易员认为，根据官方市场规则，Kalshi本应依据最初的认证计票结果进行结算，而当时尚未有候选人退出。
“我们根据规则和常识做出了解决：‘是’的候选人为进入 ballot 的四人，‘否’的为未进入的两人，”Kalshi发言人伊丽莎白·戴安娜在一封电子邮件中说道。
一名要求匿名以便直言不讳的交易员表示，他在初选中押注了5000美元，本以为能赢得1.3万美元。另一名交易员迦勒·戴维斯表示，他认为官方规则与该市场的名称不符。
“我指出这类问题，并不是为了谋求赔付，”戴维斯是Kalshi平台上排名前1%的交易员，曾押注阿拉斯加州的选举，“在这件事上，我甚至不在乎结果。更多是为了平台的长期健康。我交易量大，所以大家需要相信平台会正确结算。”
本文已更新补充更多信息。
https://www.cnn.com/videos/title-2599145?episode=2599169&source=subwall:vod:episode-2599169&iid=related-embed_streaming-now
The ‘first prediction-market election’ scrambles the midterms
2026-09-24T09:00:30.405Z / CNN
Dan Rogalski has been obsessed with elections since middle school. He didn’t travel often as a kid, so elections were “a cool way to learn about different places,” he recalled.
He got a college degree in mathematics and now works as a software engineer in Seattle. But he said “there’s money to be made” on prediction markets, where people can bet on everything from sports to entertainment and the weather — and in Rogalski’s case, elections.
“I would see a lot of bad analysis online,” said Rogalski, 24. “So, I thought I could do better than these people.”
Since he started trading, Rogalski has profited $600,000 across platforms and ranked 20th on Kalshi’s leaderboard for election traders as of Thursday. He’s part of the more than $750 million in combined trading volume on 2026 election markets on Kalshi and its top rival, Polymarket, according to a CNN analysis of public data.
All this wagering is scrambling nearly every aspect of the midterms — from campaigns to election officials, voters, donors and traders — according to interviews with 20 people involved in elections and prediction sites. Many have dubbed it the “first prediction-market election.”
Multiple election officials told CNN prediction platforms are fostering a new wave of disinformation and creating risks for possible insider trading within their own offices.
Dean Logan, the top election official for Los Angeles County, said even though election markets are legal, he wishes they would go away. He said his election office, the largest in the nation, dealt with a surge of “destructive” prediction-fueled disinformation after the city’s mayoral primary in June.
His message to prediction companies? “Don’t do this,” he said. “Stay out of this particular field. There are plenty of other areas for you to do what you do. But you don’t really belong here.”
Campaigns say the markets are a new form of “background noise” they need to deal with, giving them a real-time barometer of public sentiment, even if the markets don’t always accurately predict outcomes.
Still, some political operatives acknowledged that they’re closely tracking their odds. One source told CNN they met a candidate who checks the market for their race “nearly every hour.”
CNN has a partnership with Kalshi and uses its data to cover major events. Editorial employees at CNN aren’t allowed to trade on prediction markets.
The prediction companies say their platforms offer a public service by harnessing the “wisdom of the crowd” to surface unbiased insights about election outcomes — which they claim are better than the polls.
“Election prediction markets are well-calibrated,” Kalshi’s head of politics growth Benjamin Freeman told CNN in an interview. “Polls are backwards-looking. They’re expensive to run. They can be biased. Markets are always live. They’re 24/7. They can price-in new information quicker than polls.”
A Polymarket spokesperson said in a statement, “We provide transparent, accurate, real-time information about the events that matter — an antidote to the disinformation poisoning public dialogue. The public has a right to this information, just as it has a right to polling, only ours is more accurate.”
To maximize engagement, and their own profits, Kalshi and Polymarket have created markets for essentially every inch of the 2026 midterms.
The hundreds of available markets range from every House and Senate race to more obscure questions such as whether major endorsements will be announced and even whether the midterms will “happen on time.”
The “who will control Congress” markets on Kalshi and Polymarket have seen a combined $32 million in trading volume, as of this week. But plenty of the closely watched House battlegrounds have less than $100,000 in trading volume.
Niche election markets have been around for decades, and a federal appeals court in 2024 paved the way for Kalshi to offer more widespread trading on the presidential race that year. But prediction markets have never been as ubiquitous as they are today across US culture, and trading volume has soared in the past year.
More than 80% of the prediction business still comes from sports, though the election markets have grown. Trading activity comes from retail traders having fun, newfound day traders and large commercial institutions.
“We don’t do sports. We don’t want to spend our time in that mess,” said Earl Nemser, vice chairman of the Interactive Brokers Group, a brokerage that facilitates prediction trades. “But elections outcomes have major global consequences. It’s important for insurance companies and individuals to hedge exposure.”
Some election officials say the prediction wave is creating fresh headaches at a time when they’re already grappling with new threats from the Trump administration, burnout among poll workers and years of disinformation.
Others like Derek Bowens, the elections director in Durham County, North Carolina, said it’s “something we have to live with,” despite his concerns that prediction sites create “challenges to the confidence of our election system.”
Prediction sites were on the agenda at a professional conference in July, where election officials from across the country swapped strategies for November. At the conference, and in later interviews, officials told CNN they’re nervous that prediction markets could even depress turnout, because voters might not go to the polls if their preferred candidate has horrific odds to win.
“People are looking to betting market as indicators for who will win, and that’s dangerous,” said Barb Byrum, the election clerk for Ingham County, Michigan, which includes Lansing. “This is just people who are trying to make a buck. It’s simply conjecture. The true results come from the voters.”
Kalshi rejects many of these concerns. Freeman said prediction sites could boost turnout by attracting new voters, especially younger voters who like trading. He also said prediction platforms give people and businesses a way to financially “hedge political outcomes” in a fair and open market.
What comes up the most with election officials is their fear that prediction sites will create new avenues for disinformation about mass voter fraud and elections being rigged. And there’s already a poster child for this: The Los Angeles mayoral primary.
For most of the campaign, prediction markets suggested Democratic Mayor Karen Bass would advance to the general election along with Republican Spencer Pratt, the former reality TV star who built a fervent online following.
Bass’ campaign was pulling for Pratt, too, viewing him as a weaker opponent for November, and betting markets may have contributed to an overconfidence, a Bass campaign ally told CNN. (Bass spokesman Alex Stack said prediction markets were “background noise” that didn’t influence campaign strategy.)
In the week after the June 2 primary, election workers slowly tallied more than 850,000 votes, and Pratt fell from second place to third, knocking him out of the general election.
Frustrated Pratt supporters cited prediction markets to claim the race was rigged. Making matters even worse, paid social media influencers for Kalshi and Polymarket were caught peddling false conspiracies about shady “late” ballots and “literally impossible” vote totals.
“It had some real negative effects,” said Logan, the Los Angeles County election official. “We spent a lot of time on our end trying to combat that misinformation about the security and accuracy of our process.”
Prediction markets have also become a new consideration for pollsters — and not always in a positive light. Markets shifted after Bass promoted an August poll that she said showed her “momentum,” but it later turned out the survey was fake, with the group behind it calling it a “social experiment.”
Adding to the potential confusion for voters, Kalshi “projects” winners on election nights with sleek social media graphics. Polymarket also uses the “projection” phrase to describe the odds on its markets, adopting the same terminology that news organizations like CNN use — but with very different methodologies.
News outlets hire statisticians who use mathematical models to project winners from real results. Freeman said Kalshi “projects” winners after polls close when a candidate reaches 99% odds to win and stays there for a while.
“These aren’t formal calls, like the media does it,” Freeman told CNN. “In small print on these graphics, we clarify that these aren’t official calls.”
Another high-profile miss by prediction markets this year came in August’s Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor. State Rep. Francesca Hong was trading at around 95% to win, heading into Election Day but lost to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley in a major upset that also defied polling.
A former spokeswoman for Hong’s campaign, Allison Geyer, said the markets “never factored into our strategic thinking” and that, “even with traditional polling consistently showing us in first place, we took nothing for granted.”
Other candidates heavily favored on prediction platforms also lost in Hawaii and Texas. Kalshi traders gave Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed a 97% chance to win his primary – he did win, but by a tiny margin of less than 1%.
“This is the first prediction-market election,” said Nicholas Jager, 26, a trader with profits of $1.3 million this year. “The markets have been pretty good … Wisconsin was a miss. For the public, it can be pretty jarring, seeing a high-probability thing not actually occurring.”
Kalshi says that in a fair market, huge underdogs occasionally do win. After Wisconsin, co-founder Luana Lopes Lara posted, “5% is not 0%.”
The betting markets have seeped into campaign culture.
One Democratic operative said some staffers are watching the markets so closely that they’re scouring for bumps from strong debate performances or drops from bad stories in the press.
But they also noted that prediction sites can’t offer insights for which TV ads should be deployed in which media markets. Another operative said they found more value from polling, and the “feel” from door-knocking and phone-banking.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look at Kalshi, but it’s not driving our decisions,” one of the operatives said.
Kelly Gibson, vice president of the American Association of Political Consultants, said she worried that favorable odds on prediction markets can lure campaigns into a “false sense of security” that they are winning a race. “It’s like a quicksand,” she said.
Some candidates have openly drawn optimism from prediction markets.
That happened earlier this month in the race for Texas railroad commissioner after GOP nominee Bo French drew bipartisan backlash for a xenophobic post about South Asian college football fans. His Democratic opponent, Jon Rosenthal, wrote on X, “I’m now the favorite,” sharing his 52% Kalshi odds.
The betting markets are rattling the donor world, too.
Another Democratic operative — one who worked in a competitive Senate primary — said they felt they had to track prediction markets because some donors followed the markets.
“It’s just another thing for them to stress out about,” the operative said.
So, the campaign would assuage donors’ concerns by downplaying the markets, sharing internal polls or previewing upcoming positive news, like a big endorsement.
Gibson, a Democratic media consultant, said she has heard of advisers having to talk donors, especially those from the technology industry, out of making investment decisions based on what prediction markets say about a race.
The expansion of prediction sites means it’s never been easier for campaign staff or election workers to corruptly cash in on insider knowledge — like a scandal that’s about to blow up, or a vote-drop in the middle of the night.
The first political insider trading cases became public in April, when Kalshi fined and suspended three minor candidates who bet on their own races. Speculation swirled about more cases, and some campaign staffers even anonymously bragged in the press about making money.
Kalshi disclosed a few more new cases last month, notably including Laurie Buckhout, the GOP nominee in a battleground House race in North Carolina. Buckhout apologized for her “dumb mistake,” and like the other traders, she only bet a small amount and paid a modest fine — about $2,600.
Legal experts have said the penalties in these and other cases, like the White House teleprompter operator, aren’t creating enough deterrence. Kalshi’s leaders say the fines typically follow longstanding formulas that are spelled out in federal law for how to punish securities and commodities fraud.
“If I had my druthers, we would bring a sledgehammer to every single case, to stop anybody from ever committing bad conduct,” Kalshi’s head of enforcement, Bobby DeNault, told CNN. “But that’s not really the way we traditionally think of pursuing enforcement when there are violations.”
The company scrubs public records for names of campaign staffers and blocks them from trading on relevant markets, DeNault said, as part of its internal safeguards to prevent and catch insider activity.
A Polymarket spokesperson said in a statement, “We protect our markets with continuous surveillance, clear rules against manipulation and misuse, and an experienced investigations team.”
The election officials who spoke to CNN said they’ve started including warnings against insider trading while preparing staff and poll workers for November. Some counties have adopted formal bans against election-trading.
“Referees don’t get to bet on sports, and election officials and election workers don’t get to bet on elections,” said Byrum, the Lansing election official. “That’s the message we’re conveying in our trainings to clerks.”
During primary season, the vast majority of markets were settled without a hitch and without any indications of manipulation or insider activity.
But a dispute in Alaska’s marquee Senate race raised questions about how things could go in November, when Kalshi and Polymarket will be settling thousands of markets during the chaotic post-election period, as races are called by press outlets and election officials certify final results.
Some traders complained that Kalshi improperly settled the market for the Alaska’s top-four primary after a flurry of action in the days afterward, where some candidates withdrew and were replaced by others.
Kalshi has defended settling the market based on who was announced to be on the final list of candidates advancing to the general election. But some traders argued that the officials market rules indicated that Kalshi should have paid out based on the original certified results of the race, before anyone dropped out.
“We resolved in accordance with our rules and common sense: ‘Yes’ for the four candidates on the ballot and ‘No’ for the two who are not,” Kalshi spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana said in an email.
One trader, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said he bet $5,000 on the primary and thought he won $13,000. Another trader, Caleb Davies, said he believed the official rules didn’t align with the title of the market.
“When I call out stuff like this, it’s not because I’m looking for a payout,” said Davies, a top-1% trader on Kalshi who bet on the Alaska race. “In this case, I don’t even care. It’s more for the long-term health of the platform. I trade a ton, and you need to trust that platforms will pay out correctly.”
This article has been updated with additional information.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/title-2599145?episode=2599169&source=subwall:vod:episode-2599169&iid=related-embed_streaming-now