WASHINGTON — Never bet on yourself — or at least don’t do it on Kalshi.
North Carolina Republican congressional hopeful Laurie Buckhout found that out the hard way Monday, getting hit with a $2,500 fine and a three-year suspension from the prediction market platform for placing a wager about her campaign.
“I bet on myself. Literally,” Buckhout, a former Pentagon official working on cyber policy in the Trump administration, told The Post when asked about the penalty.
“It was a dumb mistake, and as soon as I learned there was an issue, I worked to make it right. Safe to say my career as a Kalshi trader was short-lived.”
Kalshi noted that Buckhout “cooperated with the inquiry into this trading activity and has agreed to resolve this matter by accepting their conclusions, paying a financial penalty, and agreeing to a restriction from trading on the exchange.”
It was not immediately clear whether Buckhout bet on her primary victory or whether she will win the general election. It is also unclear how much she bet and when she placed the wager.
The Post reached out to both the Republican’s campaign and Kalshi for clarification.
Buckhout is challenging incumbent Rep. Don Davis (R-NC) in the Tar Heel State’s 1st Congressional District, which covers much of rural northeastern North Carolina, having been redrawn by state legislators to favor the GOP.
The Cook Political Report currently rates the race as “lean Republican.”
The November general election is a rematch of 2024, when Davis defeated Buckhout by 1.7 percentage points. Buckhout was renominated by district voters in the GOP primary earlier this year, defeating Carteret County Sheriff Asa Buck.
Numerous political insiders have been caught trying to make money off prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. Despite their limited availability in the US, many Americans use VPNs to get around access restrictions.
On Monday, Kalshi announced that it had permanently banned lying former Long Island Rep. George Santos (R-NY) from the platform after he placed a bet on whether or not he would attend the State of the Union this year.
Earlier this year, Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke was charged with using classified information to place a $400,000 bet about a military operation in Venezuela.
Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Nevada can regulate Kalshi via state gambling laws despite the platform having a federal Designated Contract Market license to oversee the trade of swaps, futures, and other options.
Many experts expect the case to get Supreme Court attention in the future because of its implications for the multi-billion-dollar industry.
