Report: Kalshi Lawyers Briefed Prosecutors Before FBI Raided Polymarket CEO's Apartment

Prediction market rivals Kalshi and Polymarket have spent years fighting for the same customers. According to a New York Times report, that fight included Kalshi lawyers meeting with Manhattan federal prosecutors before the FBI raided the apartment of Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan.

The raid happened before dawn on November 13, 2024. FBI agents used a battering ram to enter Coplan's apartment as part of an investigation into whether Polymarket let American users bet on its platform despite restrictions meant to keep them off.

According to the Times, citing Polymarket sources, Kalshi's attorneys used their pre-raid meetings with prosecutors to detail how Polymarket's platform operates, including how US users could allegedly still access it. Polymarket executives came to believe, privately, that Kalshi's leadership helped put federal investigators on Coplan's trail.

The Times reported that Polymarket executives went further, speculating that someone connected to Kalshi tailed Coplan, spotted federal agents outside his apartment building the morning of the raid, and quickly tipped off journalists so the story would spread fast. As reported, this is speculation from Polymarket's side, not a proven fact.

Coplan publicly called the raid political retaliation by the Biden administration. No source here confirms that characterization either. What is established is that the raid happened, that it targeted a real regulatory question of whether Polymarket allowed prohibited US access, and that no charges against Coplan or Polymarket tied to that investigation have been reported as filed.

Kalshi's Denial

Kalshi spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana told the Times that any Kalshi role in triggering the raid was a "complete lie." She said Kalshi only learned about the FBI search through media coverage, like everyone else, and said the company regularly communicates with regulators about industry compliance as a routine matter, not as a targeted campaign against Polymarket.

Diana also pushed back on Polymarket's broader posture, telling the Times the company was exhibiting a "truly bizarre level of paranoia." She confirmed Kalshi has repeatedly flagged what it views as Polymarket's regulatory shortcomings to officials, but framed that as standard industry conduct, not orchestration of a federal raid.

There is a real difference between a company routinely raising compliance concerns with regulators, which Kalshi does not deny, and a company actively coordinating surveillance and tipping off press to embarrass a rival's CEO during a federal search, which Kalshi flatly denies. The sourcing here leans on Polymarket's account of what it believes happened. Kalshi's on-record response should carry real weight until better evidence surfaces.

A Feud With History

The bad blood predates the raid by years. Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, who met at MIT, co-founded Kalshi in 2018. Coplan launched Polymarket in 2020. According to the Times, an early meeting between the two camps went sideways when Coplan tried to bond with Mansour over both having been raised by single mothers, a comment that reportedly made Mansour uncomfortable rather than building rapport.

After the raid, according to tech blog Pirate Wires, screenshots surfaced showing Kalshi growth-team employee Keaton Inglis privately encouraging former NFL player Antonio Brown, who has 2.2 million followers on X, to publicly accuse Coplan of guilt. This episode, separate from the raid itself, is one of the more concrete, documented examples of Kalshi personnel trying to shape public narrative against Polymarket's CEO in real time.

What's Unresolved

No source in this reporting confirms that Kalshi directed, funded, or orchestrated the raid itself, only that its lawyers met with prosecutors beforehand and shared concerns about Polymarket's compliance. Whether that meeting was routine regulatory advocacy or something closer to targeting a rival through law enforcement is exactly the kind of question that is hard to prove either way from the outside. Prosecutors don't typically explain which tips they act on, and companies rarely confirm coordinating with federal investigators against a competitor.

Neither the Department of Justice nor the FBI has been reported as commenting on Kalshi's specific role in triggering the November 2024 search. Polymarket has not filed any public legal claim tied to the alleged coordination, based on available reporting. The prediction-market industry itself remains a regulatory gray zone, with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission still working through how to classify and oversee these event-betting platforms. That fight will likely shape whether incidents like this one recur as both companies keep scaling.