Kalshi halts Trading on Luigi Mangione's Future

Kalshi, America’s regulated future prediction market platform, which brought around "election betting," has been caught in another interesting development, after the platform was told by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to stop offering options on Luigi Mangione.

Kalshi says the regulator warned it over Luigi Mangione markets

Mangione is the presumed killer of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson who was allegedly shot in New York by the 26-year-old progeny of a wealthy family. Mangione’s alleged motives for the assault that led to Thompson’s death are unclear, and he has pled not guilty to both federal and state charges so far.

Kalshi, though, has been quick to cotton on his story and offered prediction markets on its platform, asking registered users to back outcomes on Mangione’s future.

Among the markets put forward by the platform were such options as whether he would plead guilty, face extradition to New York (he was arrested in Pennsylvania), whether he would be convicted, or indeed whether there was an accomplice.

Kalshi received a notice from the regulator that the markets breached a specific code of the platform’s existing regulation under the CFTC and markets were halted on December 13, several days after Mangione’s arrest on December 9.

The CFTC explained that it prohibited prediction markets on events linked to terrorism and crime.

Kalshi’s markets draw heavy criticism from observers

A popular opinion was shared by Bloomberg by Cantrell Dumas, director of derivatives policy at Better Markets, who criticized Kalshi’s decision to offer the markets in the first place.

"People are betting on whether this person is allegedly responsible for the assassination of another human being, and here we are desensitized to this and betting on whether he’ll enter a guilty plea," Dumas said.

Mangione has also won some sympathy from ordinary Americans who have become disillusioned with the way the health system and insurance industry in the country work.

Kalshi has previously grabbed headlines after the prediction market platform launched a legal offensive against the CFTC, compelling it to rule once and for all whether the platform could offer prediction markets on the US presidential election in 2024.

The CFTC had equivocated and failed to furnish a decision which put Kalshi’s legal offensive in motion, finally securing a court decision to go ahead and offer prediction markets in time for the elections.

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