A company that successfully fought the Biden administration for the right to offer legal bets on the U.S. presidential election has hired one of President-elect Donald Trump's sons.
New York-based Kalshi has hired Donald Trump Jr. as a strategic adviser, citing "his extensive business experience and influence."
"This important addition to our team marks a major milestone for the future of Kalshi, and for how Americans uncover the truth in today’s fractured, often biased media landscape," the company's founder, Tarek Mansour, wrote in a blog post on its website Monday. "Don Jr. brings a fresh perspective to Kalshi as we continue to push prediction markets into the mainstream."
Last fall, a federal appeals court allowed Kalshi to begin taking bets on U.S. elections, including the outcome of congressional races and the presidential election.
People are also reading…
The court ruled against the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency that sought to block such bets on the grounds that they could undermine public confidence in the integrity of elections.
That court battle is continuing, but Kalshi is free for now to offer election bets among the vast array of so-called "prediction contracts" it offers.
New Jersey set a new record for gambling revenue in 2024. But the nearly $5.7 billion it won from gamblers got a big boost from internet betting. And therein lies the rub for the brick-and-mortar casinos.
They allow people to, in effect, wager on whether a particular event will happen, including how much or little snow will fall in New York City this month; which movie will win the Oscar for best picture; the number of tornadoes that occur this month, and whether Costco will raise the price of its hot dog combo beyond $1.50.
But they also offer bets on things directly connected to Trump, including how many executive orders he will issue on his first day in office; whether he will buy "at least part" of Greenland; how many Jan. 6 defendants he will pardon in his first 100 days, and which countries he will hit with tariffs in his first 48 hours in office.
Mansour said his company did a better job of predicting Trump's November victory over Vice President Kamala Harris than established media outlets did.
In a post on X, Donald Trump Jr. said his father's team followed Kalshi's markets on Election Day and knew they were bound for victory much sooner than media outlets had reported.
"On Election night at Mar-a-Lago, while biased outlets called the race a coin toss, my family and close friends used the prediction market Kalshi to know we won hours ahead of the fake news media," he wrote. "I immediately knew I had to contribute to their mission.
"The Kalshi team has worked hard, sued the Biden administration, and achieved the impossible feat of becoming the first legal prediction market in the U.S. I'm excited to be part of what they're building."
