Who is George Santos? The former congressman pardoned by Donald Trump banned for life by Kalshi

The prediction markets platform Kalshi banned former congressman George Santos from access this Monday and imposed a fine of more than $70,000 after concluding that he profited from manipulated trades in which he had insider information.

“Kalshi’s Compliance Department has determined that there are reasonable grounds to believe that George Santos engaged in trading activity in certain markets related to his attendance at the State of the Union address ,” the company said in a statement.

Kalshi stated that, “due to his ability to influence the outcome of the event,” Santos was prohibited from trading in the market.

However, between February 2 and 25, 2026, he placed several "large-volume" bets on his own participation in President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in February.

Subsequently, h e began making a series of public statements about his attendance at the event in an attempt to influence the price of the “Yes” and “No” contracts , respectively. Some of these statements included false or misleading claims,” the company added.

Kalshi determined that, thanks to the manipulation, Santos made a profit of $17,839.57.

Therefore, the company decided to suspend his participation, directly or indirectly, on a "permanent" basis and imposed a fine of $71,356 on him.

"Hello, Kalshi, thanks for the lifetime ban from your betting platform. Let's see how much longer you will be around ," Santos wrote in a message on X after the news became known.

'Shortly afterward, he accused the company of " violating its own notices and deadlines" , after noting that the company gave him a 30-day notice last August 7: "Leaks and the search for attention seem to be this organization's usual way of operating".'

This is not the first time betting companies have detected violations of their rules. Candidates who tried to bet on their own elections had already been discovered before.

Last week, Kalshi sanctioned a former White House teleprompter operator for detecting his bets related to words and phrases that would appear in Trump’s speeches between December 2025 and February 2026.

Trump commutes his wire fraud sentence

Donald Trump announced in the past that he signed the commutation of the sentence of former New York Republican congressman George Santos, sentenced to more than seven years in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The President of the United States stated on his Truth Social account that Santos had been "terribly mistreated" in prison and signed the commutation, releasing him immediately.