California Candidate For Governor Bets On Himself To Win
Kyle Langford, a Republican candidate for governor in California, bet on himself to win the highest office in the state at Kalshi this weekend.
Langford posted a video of himself placing the wager on Twitter/X on Saturday:
I just bet $100 that I, Kyle Langford will be the next Governor of California, join me (if you believe) @Kalshi
The wager leads to a number of questions — not least of which is whether candidates for office should be betting on Kalshi’s political markets at all, even if it’s just on themselves.
Langford boosted his odds from nil to almost 20% for a time by placing a bet and encouraging his followers to do the same. However, there’s only about $2,500 in trading volume on the market.
Kalshi’s rules on political markets
What does Kalshi say about who can and can’t bet on elections?
For starters, the California governor market itself doesn’t actually carry any “trading prohibitions”:
Usually, after the timeline and payout section, a political market would include a listing of the prohibitions. Not so in this case. But here’s what it looks like on a market for New Jersey governor:
And the listed prohibitions on who can trade/bet on this (and most) election markets:
Also interestingly, those prohibitions don’t technically seem to ban candidates for office from trading on their own elections, unless they already hold office or are covered by any of the other bullet points. However, Langford was president of the California First PAC, and is still listed as such on his LinkedIn profile. Paid employees of PACs are prohibited from trading on most markets. But again, notably, this is not an explicit prohibition on the California governor market.
Additionally, here’s a report on what Kalshi sent in an email to users back in October for political markets:
In an email sent to customers on Tuesday, the Kalshi betting exchange laid out a new series of restrictions on the political wagering markets it was recently cleared to offer. …
Kalshi claims that the CFTC did not mandate the new guardrails, which it said were put in place to prevent any possible “manipulation” of its political markets.
Kalshi summarized its update with this line:
“Spoiler alert: if you’re running for office or counting the votes, you’re sitting this one out.”
Kalshi does list candidates as banned from some markets in a document called “Source Agency Tradiing Prohibitions.”
Should candidates be able to bet at all, or on themselves?
The ethical answer is of course “no,” no matter what Kalshi’s terms and conditions, market rules, or election laws say about the matter.
“Betting on yourself” may be considered fine by some. However, it’s not clear that candidates wouldn’t be allowed to bet on other candidates or indeed against themselves, if they aren’t banned from betting on the underlying market. It doesn’t take much imagination to see why this would be problematic. Regardless, Kalshi’s trading prohibitions on political markets just say who can’t trade; they don’t qualify the type of trading on a market that individuals can or can’t do.
The bigger problem might not even be Langford betting on himself; it was of course a fairly de minimis bet. The stakes may be fairly small here and early on in the election cycle, but Langford was able to improve his odds at Kalshi just by getting a few other people to bet on him. Candidates can and do point to Kalshi in the absence of (or in place of) polls to try to validate momentum for their candidacies.
Update — Kalshi offered this statement later Monday:
"We are aware of the recently publicized circumstance regarding a candidate trading on a market regarding their candidacy, and our compliance and surveillance teams are acting accordingly.
As required of all CFTC-regulated exchanges, Kalshi investigates and, as appropriate, adjudicates all potential violations of its Rules, which are available at https://kalshi.com/regulatory/rulebook.
Kalshi does not give public comment on the status of ongoing investigations. The outcome of such an investigation, or any pursuant notice of charges or discipline, may become public via exchange notice."