Kalshi Bans MrBeast Video Editor and Political Candidate Over Insider Trading

Gizmodo · Feb 25, 2026 · Collected from RSS

Full Article

Kalshi has temporarily banned two people from betting on its platform, a video editor for MrBeast and a former gubernatorial candidate in California, over allegations of insider trading, according to a new blog post from the company. The two men have been issued fines, and their cases are being referred to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Kalshi didn’t name the two men in its blog post, but regulatory filings indicate the editor for MrBeast is Artem Kaptur and the former gubernatorial candidate is Kyle Langford. Kalshi’s disciplinary committee says that Kaptur was making bets in August and September 2025 and was allegedly trading on non-public information he obtained while working for MrBeast. Kaptur didn’t cooperate with the investigation, according to the regulatory filing posted online, though Gizmodo could not independently confirm that claim. It’s unclear which videos Kaptur was betting on, but there are a number of bets placed on MrBeast videos each week that any insider would benefit from, including things like how long MrBeast’s next video will be and which words the YouTube host will say. Kaptur has been banned from the platform for two years and was hit with a penalty of just over $20,000, including disgorgement of roughly $5,000 in profits from his bets, along with additional penalties of $15,000. It’s unclear whether Kaptur is still employed by MrBeast’s Beast Industries, but a spokesperson for the company told Gizmodo that an internal investigation has been opened. “Beast Industries has no tolerance for this behavior, whether by contestants or our own employees. We have a longstanding policy in place against employees using proprietary company information, which safeguards the highest standards and ethics throughout our organization,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “With regard to this particular matter, we’ve already initiated an independent investigation as part of our overall ongoing efforts to ensure the integrity of our workplace and trust with our global audiences,” the spokesperson continued. “We welcome Kalshi—and hopefully others in the space—also taking this issue seriously, but it only works if they are willing to communicate their findings, so we’re hopeful they’ll be more open to that in the future.” Kyle Langford, a 24-year-old in California, had been running as a long-shot candidate for governor of California when he made his bets. But Langford has pivoted to running for Congress as a representative for the state’s 26th congressional district, just northwest of Los Angeles. The district has been represented by Democrat Julia Brownley since 2013. Brownley is retiring at the end of her current term. Langford first announced his candidacy for governor in February 2025 and reportedly made his bets in May of that year. “As a candidate, Langford qualified as a direct decision maker for this contract and had direct influence on the outcome of the Underlying event,” Kalsi said in a regulatory filing posted online. “The [Kalshi] Committee further found that, on May 24, 2025, Langford placed two trades on this contract and then promoted them on social media, in violation of Rule 5.17(z). On the same day, during a phone call with Kalshi Compliance and Legal Departments, Langford acknowledged that these trades were improper and in violation of the Kalshi Rules.” You read that correctly. Langford wasn’t found out by some sophisticated sleuthing by Kalshi. He just tweeted out a video of himself making the bet. The screenshot appears to show two previous bets, including “OpenAI new CEO by December 2024?” and something about President Trump naming someone to an official position. The full text for the Trump bet is cut off in the screen recording. I just bet $100 💵 that I, Kyle Langford will be the next Governor of California, join me (if you believe 🙏🏻) 😎 @Kalshi 🐻✝️🇺🇸 https://t.co/XMk25PuDVr pic.twitter.com/A67hRZb2Za — Kyle Langford (@KyleLangfordCA) May 24, 2025 That’s not all he tweets about, though. Langford has a lot of fans who are white supremacists, posting hype videos of Adolf Hitler and tweets like “Weimar Problems require Weimar Solutions,” a reference to the democratically elected Weimar Republic of Germany, which was immediately followed by the rise of World War II. Langford, who was raised Protestant and converted to Catholicism in recent years, also tweeted a photo of himself in front of the Auschwitz concentration camp with the caption, “My 0% Unemployment Plan.” Langford didn’t respond to questions on Wednesday. Langford has been banned from Kalshi for five years and hit with a fine of $2,246, which includes “disgorgement of the amount related to the improper trading activity covered by this action,” according to Kalshi, plus penalties of $2,000. The two insider trading cases come as prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket come under increased criticism for turning virtually everything in the world into something you can bet on. Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour recently appeared on CNBC and was asked about the peculiar nature of so many bets, including markets for what might be the first song performed by Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl. Mansour was asked about insider trading in these scenarios, specifically, if there are so many people who may have access to that information, from members of the TV crew to background dancers. Mansour said that insider trading was banned, but the CNBC hosts noted that it’s much easier to track and trace when an executive at a given company is engaging in that behavior. It’s much harder to track in these other scenarios where a random performer at the Super Bowl has information about what song might be played first. Mansour’s responses to questions from CNBC were extremely confusing and provided absolutely no clarity on the definition of insider trading at Kalshi. And even if you could get an extremely clear-cut definition for such an amorphous market, you’d still have the hurdle of proper enforcement. As journalist Judd Legum points out, the CTFC is relatively small and has very limited resources, with a budget of just $400 million. Kalshi reached $1 billion in trading volume for the Super Bowl alone. With that context, it’s hard not to see the penalties imposed on just two guys, an editor for MrBeast and a far-right political candidate, as the tiniest drop in the bucket.