Kalshi Investigating Three Small Bets Placed Before Katie Zacharia Was Named Press Secretary

Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated prediction market, is investigating a cluster of bets on who would become the next White House press secretary. The wagers backed Katie Zacharia, a conservative commentator, and landed shortly before President Trump announced her pick on Friday, Oct. 9.

A Kalshi spokesperson confirmed the probe to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported it. The company offered few details and described the review as part of its effort to protect market integrity.

The three bets

Before the announcement, Kalshi's market gave Zacharia roughly a 1% chance of getting the job. Then three small wagers came in.

• A $19 bet at about 10:43 p.m. ET Thursday, Oct. 8, set to pay $1,896.
• A bet of about $74 at around 1:41 p.m. ET Friday, set to pay $3,689.
• A bet of about $80, placed around the same time Friday, set to pay $4,023.

Total stakes: about $173. Total potential payouts: roughly $9,600.

Around 2 p.m. ET Friday, the New York Times and other outlets began reporting that Zacharia had been selected. Trump then confirmed it on Truth Social. "I am confident that Katie will deliver strong results for our Country," he wrote.

The contract has since settled Yes. It is unclear whether any individual accounts face withdrawal restrictions. Kalshi has not said whether it is holding back any payouts.

Who placed them is unknown

Trading on Kalshi is anonymous to the public, but the company keeps records of its users' identities, according to the Journal. Kalshi has not said who is behind the three accounts.

Neither the White House nor the CFTC responded to the Journal's inquiries. No charges have been filed. No one has publicly alleged that any particular person traded on inside knowledge.

The sums are small, and a 1% long shot does come in sometimes. What makes the timing notable is that two of the bets were placed within roughly 20 minutes of the first press reports of her selection. Whether anyone with advance knowledge was involved is exactly what Kalshi says it is trying to determine.

A pattern prediction markets keep running into

This is not the platform's first insider-trading question involving the White House. In July, the CFTC opened an investigation into Trump's teleprompter operator over trades tied to the content of the president's speeches. Profits from those trades were frozen.

The Journal reported that the operator, Gabriel Pérez, was fired after making more than $100,000 from bets on the president's speeches. According to the Journal, he reached a settlement with the CFTC in August. The Journal also reported that the White House sent staff a memo warning against using nonpublic information for private gain, after a string of well-timed bets on the war with Iran. The paper does not tie either episode to the Zacharia trades.

Kalshi has previously referred similar matters to the CFTC. It has not said whether it will do so here.

The broader problem predates this probe. Prediction markets let users wager on everything from sports to personnel decisions, and they have drawn growing scrutiny over the risk that insiders will profit from information the public does not have. A job announcement known to a handful of people in a small circle is an obvious candidate for that kind of leak. The same goes for trades that can be traced to a staffer, a friend of a staffer, or anyone who heard early.

The new press secretary

Zacharia is a frequent guest on Fox News and Newsmax. She briefly worked at the Department of Homeland Security. Her selection surprised many, given the odds the market had put on it.

The Daily Beast has also drawn attention to a November 2025 post on X in which Zacharia wrote that mifepristone, formerly RU-486, is "connected to the manufacturer of the deadly gas Zyklon B." She tied that to Degesch and to I.G. Farben, which held a 42.5% interest in the company.

The Daily Beast, citing Britannica, notes that RU-486 was developed in France by Roussel-Uclaf and approved for use in 1988. Roussel-Uclaf was acquired by Hoechst AG in 1997, and the FDA approved mifepristone in 2000. The Daily Beast also notes that Hoechst is the company Degesch's parent I.G. Farben later evolved into. Zacharia's post leaned on that corporate lineage, which postdates the drug's creation by nearly a decade.

What comes next

The open items are concrete. Kalshi has not said who placed the three trades, whether it will hand the matter to the CFTC, or whether any payouts are frozen. The CFTC has not commented on whether it is looking at the Zacharia bets. If the agency opens its own inquiry, as it did with the teleprompter operator in July, the account identities Kalshi holds would likely be the first thing investigators ask for.