None of the three wagers topped $100, but each backed Katie Zacharia for White House press secretary before her selection was reported, and Kalshi is now reviewing them.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the trades and said a Kalshi spokesperson confirmed the review. A person familiar with the matter also told CNN the exchange is examining the bets, though a Kalshi spokesperson declined to comment to CNN.
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Small Stakes, Long Odds
The first wager, about $19, went in late on Thursday, Oct. 8, and was set to pay $1,896. Two more, of about $74 and $80, followed around 1:41 p.m. ET on Friday, Oct. 9, with potential payouts of $3,689 and $4,023. Together the three positions cost roughly $173 and stood to return about $9,600.
Traders had given Zacharia about a 1% chance of getting the job at the time. The New York Times and other outlets began reporting the pick around 2 p.m. ET Friday, less than 20 minutes after the last two bets, and President Donald Trump then confirmed it on Truth Social. Zacharia, a communications adviser at Trump Media & Technology Group and a former Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, replaces Karoline Leavitt, who stepped down at the end of August.
The White House did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment. Kalshi has not identified the traders or said where its review will lead.
‘Knowable’ Markets Under Scrutiny
The press secretary contract belongs to a category CNN described as “knowable markets,” where some people may learn the result before it is announced. Experts told the outlet those contracts carry more insider trading risk than bets on games or elections.
More than $20 million has been traded on such markets linked to the 2026 midterms, the nonpartisan Anti-Corruption Data Collective said in a Friday report.
“Insider information is often timely,” Michelle Kendler-Kretsch, a researcher at the group, told CNN. “There’s a small window someone can bet. Not every American has $10,000 in a bank account that they can put on Kalshi within a few hours before the prices change.”
The sums here are far below earlier cases. In August, a former White House teleprompter operator agreed to repay $107,539 in Kalshi profits and pay a $65,000 penalty to settle Commodity Futures Trading Commission charges over bets on what Trump would say in public. A special forces soldier has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges alleging he made about $400,000 on Polymarket by betting on the raid to capture Venezuela’s leader.
Kalshi has said it uses surveillance tools to catch unusual market moves and cooperates with federal prosecutors and regulators. Its insider trading controls are already under congressional review: House Oversight Chair James Comer opened a probe into Kalshi and Polymarket in May, and in March Kalshi began screening political candidates out of their own election markets and teamed up with integrity firm IC360 to keep athletes, coaches and referees off contracts tied to their own events.
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