Kalshi is stepping up surveillance on its prediction markets platform just days ahead of Super Bowl 60, expanding oversight through an independent advisory committee and strategic partnerships to spot insider trading and market manipulation.
The company announced Thursday that the committee will provide quarterly reports to Kalshi’s outside counsel and release statistics on investigations into suspicious activity on the platform.
Kalshi is also collaborating with Solidus Labs, a crypto trading surveillance firm, and Daniel Taylor, director of the Wharton Forensic Analytics Lab, to identify, investigate, and prevent market abuse.
The initiative comes as Super Bowl 60 approaches, one of the largest sporting events in the US, with over $168 million in bets already placed on Kalshi.
Regulators and lawmakers in Washington are intensifying their scrutiny of prediction markets. Last month, federal legislators introduced a bill aimed at restricting trading by government insiders after a user on rival platform Polymarket reportedly earned tens of thousands of dollars on contracts tied to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, placing bets just days before his capture by U.S. forces.
Kalshi has also been targeted by state regulators, with several authorities asserting that its sports‑event contracts amount to illegal gambling — a characterization the company and other platforms have vigorously rejected, arguing their products fall under federal derivatives law.
In addition to Wharton’s Daniel Taylor, Kalshi’s surveillance advisory committee includes Lisa Pinheiro, a managing principal and data scientist at Analysis Group who specializes in market manipulation analysis. The company has named its lawyer Robert DeNault as head of enforcement to work with the new committee.
Kalshi has also brought on Brian Nelson, a former U.S. Treasury official experienced in terrorism and financial intelligence, to advise on compliance and trading surveillance matters.
According to a Financial Times report, Kalshi is now seeking approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to offer margin trading in the United States, a move intended to attract more institutional investors. Margin trading would allow participants to trade event contracts by posting only a portion of the contract’s total value and settling the remainder when the contract closes. Kalshi has engaged with the CFTC on this proposal over several months, though there’s no indication yet on whether it will be approved.
