Prediction markets have a known vulnerability: what happens when the person the contract is about also happens to be trading it? George Santos answered that question in the most George Santos way imaginable.
Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York whose tenure ended in expulsion over a cascade of fraud and fabrication allegations, reportedly traded against his own attendance at President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. He had publicly stated he planned to attend. The market believed him. He then missed the event, blamed an airport delay, and walked away with more than $17,500 in profit.
How the trade worked
Kalshi, a prediction market platform regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, listed a contract on whether Santos would show up to the State of the Union. His public declarations that he intended to be there pushed the implied probability of attendance to roughly 75%.
In plain terms: the market was pricing in a three-in-four chance he would walk through the door. Santos, who apparently had better information about his own schedule than the market did, took the other side of that bet.
