Kalshi Debuts ‘Fair Markets’ Lobby Group as Congress Opens Insider Trading Probe

Kalshi on Friday unveiled an advocacy group to shape policymakers’ perceptions of prediction markets, calling the move a way to level the playing field against sportsbooks and casinos.

Americans for Fair Markets (AFM) will actively fight against “interests aimed at protecting their monopolies and sowing lies,” Kalshi said in a statement blog postemphasizing the organization’s focus on legislation that supports innovation, market integrity and consumer protection.

Kalshi said the group has tapped Taylor Budowich, a former senior White House staffer who resigned in September, to serve as a strategic adviser. The old assistant before helped lead communications for the White House and a pro-Trump super PAC.

The organization’s website borrows its color scheme from Kalshi’s logo, but Americans for Fair Markets has other members, a spokesperson said. Declutter. They declined to say how much funding the organization has received, but they described the group as “well capitalized.”

The debut of Americans for Fair Markets underlines Kalshi’s efforts to differentiate itself from chief rival Polymarket and traditional gambling platforms on Capitol Hill as the prediction markets face intensifying control from lawmakers about their potential to enrich insiders.

For example, on Friday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said, announced investigations into insider trading on Polymarket and Kalshi. The lawmaker referred to suspicious bets on military actions linked to Venezuela and Iran, which have done so motivated arrests in the US and Israel in recent months.

Although both platforms have been touted recently strengthened guaranteesKalshi has been vocal about its status as a federally regulated exchange under the CFTC. Polymarket also has a regulated platform in the US, but the majority of its betting is made on its international counterpart.

“A handful of lawmakers and a gaming lobby want to ban prediction markets completely,” says the AFM website. “It would push them abroad – to unregulated platforms with no identity verification, no consumer protections, no insider trading rules and no police officers.”

But the gaming lobby claims it’s the prediction platforms that are actually misleading, a position taken by Bill Miller, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association. made clear during testimony before Congress on Wednesday.

“These so-called prediction markets deceptively call sports betting financial contracts and investments,” he said. “Despite messages intended to entice policymakers and the public, they are increasingly exposed as sports betting backdoor operations.”