CFTC Investigating Adam Kinzinger Over Kalshi Bets on His Own Pardon: Report

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has opened an investigation into prediction-market trades made through a Kalshi account linked to former Representative Adam Kinzinger, according to Politico. The contested wagers, placed in December 2024 and January 2025, included a contract on whether Kinzinger himself would receive a presidential pardon and a separate contract on whether President Joe Biden would issue preemptive pardons before leaving office.

Kinzinger told Politico he placed roughly 25 trades around that period, reported net winnings of $823 via screenshots he provided, and believes he did not misuse any inside information. He said he was out of office for two years when he placed the bets, was neither a sitting member of Congress nor a candidate, had not discussed the pardons with anyone, and had reviewed Kalshi's rules before trading. Kalshi forbids users from betting on contracts in which they are direct participants, and the CFTC prohibits trading on material nonpublic information in markets it oversees.

Both the CFTC and Kalshi have examined the transactions; Kalshi has also been reviewing the account, while the agency has not commented to Politico. Kinzinger said neither organization had contacted him about the probe. The investigation arrives as the CFTC has been intensifying oversight of prediction markets that settle on named individuals, warning exchanges that such contracts should be presumed vulnerable to manipulation.

Kalshi has previously acted against users in related situations. In April it suspended three congressional candidates who had placed bets on their own races, and it froze the account of former Representative George Santos over trades tied to his State of the Union attendance before referring him to the CFTC and the Department of Justice; Kalshi later issued a lifetime ban for Santos in late August. Separately, the CFTC last month fined a former White House teleprompter operator $172,000 for trades tied to presidential mention markets, underscoring the agency's recent focus on these products.

Kinzinger has been publicly critical of markets that let users wager on the actions of individual lawmakers, calling such contracts a "corruption time bomb" in a Substack post last November. He said he is broadly satisfied with Kalshi's screening improvements even as the current review proceeds. The White House declined to comment to Politico, and former President Donald Trump criticized the pardons on social media in March 2025.