Odaily Planet Daily reports: Former U.S. Representative George Santos has reached a settlement with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC stated that Santos engaged in manipulative trading activities on Kalshi by trading a prediction contract on whether he would attend the 2026 State of the Union address, profiting over $17,500 from these actions.
According to the CFTC’s Friday announcement, Santos is required to pay $35,000 as part of the settlement, without admitting or denying the regulator’s findings.
The CFTC stated that, two weeks before the State of the Union address, Santos made multiple public comments about whether he would attend the event, causing significant price fluctuations in the related contract. For example, while holding a "yes" position for attendance, he posted on X asking what he should wear to the State of the Union. Within hours, the price of the "yes" position rose, after which Santos closed his position for a profit.
The CFTC also stated that Santos subsequently continued to post updates about his travel itinerary to Washington, D.C., including flights and train movements, and profited by trading in response to market reactions to his public statements. The CFTC said Santos’s actions were intentional or, at a minimum, reckless. He traded on an event contract whose underlying outcome he could influence, and he manipulated the contract’s price through misleading public statements or omissions of information to profit from his trading positions.
Attorney Joseph W. Murray stated in a statement on Friday that the State of the Union contract was Santos's first involvement in betting on a prediction market.