Kalshi Has Spent $1 Million On Federal Lobbying
The prediction market's lobbying efforts come into focus as a former US senator and Kalshi lobbyist tries to rewrite the legislative history on sports betting via event contracts.
Kalshi has spent more than a million dollars on federal lobbying, according to data at OpenSecrets.org.
While that amount is a drop in the bucket in the vast lobbying ecosystem, it’s worth highlighting for a couple of reasons:
Kalshi’s revenue was relatively minimal until October of last year, when a federal court ruling effectively lifted restrictions on election betting.
Former US senator Blanche Lincoln, who received lobbying payments from Kalshi in 2024, just penned a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission supporting the expansion of prediction markets into sports betting. That letter also seems to try to rewrite the legislative intent on event contracts and gaming.
Kalshi’s lobbying spend
Most of Kalshi’s lobbying spend came in 2024, including a $180,000 payment to Lincoln Policy Group, as first pointed out by the gaming industry trade publication InGame. Here is the breakdown by year, per OpenSecrets:
2021: $20,000
2022: $180,000
2023: $240,000
2024: $670,000
2025: $80,000
Kalshi’s 2024 lobbying spend ranked it 1,088th out of 9,200 tracked organizations, per OpenSecrets.
In the first half of this year, Kalshi has worked with just one lobbyist: Miller Strategies. CEO Jeff Miller is a well-connected power broker in DC — even more so now that President Donald Trump is back in the White House.
In 2024, Kalshi worked with both Miller and Lincoln — accounting for $380,000 in spend — in addition to three other firms.
Lincoln’s changing stance on prediction markets
Lincoln recently submitted comments on prediction markets to the CFTC, as I reported last week.
But those comments diverge from what she said when she was in the Senate in 2010. Below is some of what she said in a colloquy — a formal and often scripted conversation that takes place on the record in Congress. At the time, Lincoln was the Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, which is the committee that oversees the CFTC.
Here are some excerpts of the colloquy between Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Lincoln on the Dodd-Frank Act, which amended the Commodity Exchange Act that governs the CFTC (emphasis added):
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank Chairman LINCOLN and Chairman DODD for maintaining section 745 in the conference report accompanying the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which gives authority to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to prevent the trading of futures and swaps contracts that are contrary to the public interest.
Mrs. LINCOLN. Chairman DODD and I maintained this provision in the conference report to assure that the Commission has the power to prevent the creation of futures and swaps markets that would allow citizens to profit from devastating events and also prevent gambling through futures markets. I thank the Senator from California for encouraging Chairman DODD and me to include it. I agree that this provision will strengthen the government’s ability to protect the public interest from gaming contracts and other events contracts.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. It is very important to restore CFTC’s authority to prevent trading that is contrary to the public interest. As you know, the Commodity Exchange Act required CFTC to prevent trading in futures contracts that were ‘‘contrary to the public interest’’ from 1974 to 2000. But the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 stripped the CFTC of this authority, at the urging of industry. Since 2000, derivatives traders have bet billions of dollars on derivatives contracts that served no commercial purpose at all and often threaten the public interest. I am glad the Senator is restoring this authority to the CFTC. I hope it was the Senator’s intent, as the author of this provision, to define ‘‘public interest’’ broadly so that the CFTC may consider the extent to which a proposed derivative contract would be used predominantly by speculators or participants not having a commercial or hedging interest. Will CFTC have the power to determine that a contract is a gaming contract if the predominant use of the contract is speculative as opposed to a hedging or economic use?
Mrs. LINCOLN. That is our intent. The Commission needs the power to, and should, prevent derivatives contracts that are contrary to the public interest because they exist predominantly to enable gambling through supposed ‘‘event contracts.’’ It would be quite easy to construct an ‘‘event contract’’ around sporting events such as the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, and Masters Golf Tournament. These types of contracts would not serve any real commercial purpose. Rather, they would be used solely for gambling.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. And does the Senator agree that this provision will also empower the Commission to prevent trading in contracts that may serve a limited commercial function but threaten the public good by allowing some to profit from events that threaten our national security?
Mrs. LINCOLN. I do. National security threats, such as a terrorist attack, war, or hijacking pose a real commercial risk to many businesses in America, but a futures contract that allowed people to hedge that risk would also involve betting on the likelihood of events that threaten our national security. That would be contrary to the public interest.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Senator for including this provision. No one should profit by speculating on the likelihood of a terrorist attack. Firms facing financial risk posed by threats to our national security may take out insurance, but they should not buy a derivative. A futures market is for hedging. It is not an insurance market.
You can see the full colloquy in the Congressional Record here.
The colloquy was referenced just last year by then-CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger, who has since left the role. You can see her statement on proposed rule-making for event contracts here:
But rather than remain true to the legislative history that equated “gaming” with only sporting events, the Proposal broadly sweeps all “contests” into its definition of “gaming.”
Lincoln’s letter to the CFTC seemingly tries to rewrite legislative history on sports events and prediction markets:
Not surprisingly, the CFTC faces a lot of pressure right now to ban prediction markets, especially contracts tied to political elections or sporting events. This would be a grave mistake for a number of reasons, and it would fly in the face of the agency’s long-standing policy of letting the markets decide.
Under Dodd-Frank, lawmakers gave the CFTC authority to prohibit contracts, but only if it determines that the contracts have no commercial utility. Elections have significant policy consequences that affect businesses of all sizes, so the commercial implications are clear. Sporting events like the Super Bowl also have strong commercial value because they have major impacts on advertising, apparel sales and the hospitality industry to name a few.
Stepping back, these examples further speak to the CFTC’s need to let the markets decide what’s beneficial.
While Lincoln may have genuinely changed her stance since 2010, the legislative history — including her own words — makes it clear that Dodd-Frank was not intended to permit sports betting via event contracts.
You can see Lincoln’s letter here:
While I think it’s fundamentally unfair that some flavors of sports betting cost tens of millions to operate legally in the US and others have almost free rein, I think Kalshi has every right to lobby for a right to exist.
Lobbying allows underdogs to get a voice in lawmaking; without it we never would have seen a PASPA repeal.