Kalshi appoints Donald Trump Jr as a strategic advisor

Kalshi has announced that Donald Trump Jr – the eldest son of president-elect Donald Trump – is now a strategic advisor to the firm.

The prediction markets out grabbed headlines last year for legally offering betting on the US election on November 5, after securing victory in a Washington DC federal appeals court against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Kalshi, which is headquartered in Lower Manhattan, New York City, reported that its platform handled around $1bn in trades on the race to the White House between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democrat vice president Kamala Harris.

In a LinkedIn post, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said Trump’s election team relied on its prediction markets on election night and that appointing Trump Jr as a strategic advisor would expediate expansion plans.

“Don’s bold approach to business and his deep understanding of market dynamics perfectly align with Kalshi’s mission to redefine how America engages with information,” he wrote. 

“His guidance will help accelerate our aggressive expansion and push prediction markets into the mainstream.”

Mansour added that Trump Jr coming on board was a “major milestone” and that the company was “charging ahead to make event trading commonplace and [as] impactful as traditional financial markets.”

Following his appointment, Trump Jr took to X to express how he was “excited to be part of what they’re building.” His tweet has generated more than 500,000 views and 12,000 likes thus far.

As well as Kalshi, fellow New York-based predictions market Polymarket allowed users to trade the outcome of the election, although the FBI later raided the home of founder Shayne Coplan and seized his phone.

While Coplan wasn’t arrested, he claimed the raid was revenge for Polymarket users overwhelmingly backing Trump to return to the White House.

A report from crypto news site CoinDesk also claimed the CFTC had asked for information from crypto exchange Coinbase over their users’ interactions with Polymarket, with Coinbase informing customers it may have to share said data.

Retail financial trading app Robinhood also threw its hat into the ring with the launch of elections contracts, the result being that $500m was traded and around 500,000 people opened accounts to trade on the election outcome.

On the back of the success of its elections contacts, Robinhood founder Vladimir Tenev revealed at the company’s Investor Day 2024 in early December that management was “keenly looking into sports betting.”

However, Crypto.com – a cryptocurrency exchange operating out of Singapore – announced just before Christmas that it was rolling out sports event contracts, allowing Americans to bet ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ on high-profile events including the Super Bowl.

In response to Trump Jr being made a strategic advisor to Kalshi, Chris Grove, partner emeritus at analyst firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, wrote on LinkedIn: “Looking forward to a rush of CFTC-mediated sportsbooks led by Kalshi, Robinhood, and Crypto.com (followed by some state-based legal challenges, probably with New York at the vanguard), the return of Polymarket to the US market, and a bunch of too-late-to-the-party startup decks in 2025.”

Despite US election betting being offered by offshore sportsbooks and permitted in regulated markets like the UK, politicians are, on the whole, opposed to the idea.

In December, US representatives submitted the Ban Gambling on Elections Act to Congress, a mirror bill to Senator Jeff Merkley’s existing legislation in the Senate.

Jamie Raskin, US representative for Maryland’s eighth congressional district, said at the time: “With distrust in our electoral system at an all-time high, we must crack down on gambling in all US elections.

“Our democracy demands reliable and transparent processes to cast ballots and tally results, not a horse race clouded by gambling odds and bets placed.”