BS BULLETIN:
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Prediction market Kalshi is investigating suspiciously timed bets on Trump’s selection of Katie Zacharia as White House press secretary.
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Zacharia was given roughly a 1% chance of landing the job before the announcement.
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Three wagers totaling about $173 are expected to return more than $9,600, raising questions about possible access to inside information.
Somebody apparently had a very good hunch about President Donald Trump’s next White House press secretary. A remarkably profitable hunch.
Prediction market Kalshi is investigating a series of suspicious wagers placed shortly before Trump named conservative commentator Katie Zacharia to replace Karoline Leavitt.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Zacharia was considered a long shot, with just a 1% chance of getting the job on Kalshi.
Then came the bets.
At approximately 10:43 p.m. Thursday, someone wagered just $19 on Zacharia. That bet is expected to return $1,896.
Two more wagers appeared around 1:41 p.m. Friday, less than 20 minutes before news organizations began reporting Trump’s selection.
Those bets, worth approximately $74 and $80, are expected to return $3,689 and $4,023, respectively.
THE NUMBERS
Combined wagers
$173
Expected total payout
$9,608
Amounts are approximate; payouts remain pending market settlement.
That’s a potential profit of roughly $9,435 on three bets.
Kalshi confirmed it is investigating the transactions but declined to provide details. The identities of the bettors have not been publicly disclosed, and there is no evidence establishing that they possessed confidential information.
But the timing has raised eyebrows.
Zacharia, a communications adviser at Trump Media & Technology Group and former Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, wasn’t widely considered a front-runner.
Trump officially announced her appointment Friday afternoon.
The investigation comes after another White House prediction-market controversy involving Gabriel Perez, a former Trump teleprompter operator who reportedly made more than $100,000 betting on the president’s speeches.
Perez subsequently reached a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, agreeing to surrender his profits and pay a $65,000 fine.
The White House has previously warned staff against using nonpublic government information for personal financial gain.
Prediction markets like Kalshi allow customers to trade contracts on everything from elections to political appointments. While transactions are publicly visible, individual traders’ identities are not.
Kalshi, however, maintains records identifying its customers.
Whether the Zacharia bets were extraordinary luck or something more remains the question investigators are trying to answer.
