Key takeaways:
- NPR reported that Santos allegedly bet on Kalshi that he would not attend Trump’s State of the Union address after publicly saying he planned to be there.
- Kalshi froze Santos’ account and referred the matter to the CFTC and the Justice Department, according to NPR and the Associated Press.
- Santos was expelled from Congress in December 2023 and later had a seven-year prison sentence commuted by Trump, according to the reports.
Federal authorities are investigating whether former Rep. George Santos misled prediction-market traders by publicly saying he would attend President Trump’s State of the Union address while allegedly betting that he would not show up, according to reports by NPR and The Associated Press.
The investigation centers on trades placed on Kalshi, an online prediction market where users bet on the outcomes of real-world events. In February, traders were wagering millions of dollars on who would attend Trump’s address. A day before the speech, Santos posted a video on X saying he planned to be there.
“I’m going to be there for the State of Union in the gallery, guys,” Santos said.
The post sent odds on his attendance sharply higher, NPR reported. But Santos did not appear at the event. As Trump was speaking, Santos posted from an airport: “Watching SOTU from an airport tv was not part of the plan! FML.” The odds then dropped.
What Santos did not disclose, according to NPR, was that he had already placed bets on Kalshi that he would not attend. NPR cited three people with direct knowledge of his trades who were not authorized to speak publicly. Those people said Santos turned a profit in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Kalshi detected the trades, froze Santos’ account and referred the matter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Department of Justice, NPR reported, citing a person familiar with Kalshi’s investigation. The Associated Press reported that Kalshi flagged the trade to the CFTC. The Justice Department and the CFTC did not respond to requests for comment from the outlets, and Kalshi declined to comment to NPR.
Reached by NPR, Santos said, “Well, that’s news to me,” when asked about the insider trading probe. Asked whether he had a Kalshi account, he said, “I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no.”
Santos also told NPR that Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopes Lara is “a fellow Brazilian” whom he personally knows and said he would call her to ask whether an investigation had been launched. NPR reported that he did not respond to follow-up messages. A person familiar with Kalshi’s investigation told NPR that Santos does not know Lara and that he has avoided Kalshi’s attempts to interview him.
On X, Santos appeared to respond to the reports, writing: “I hate to disappoint but I don’t engage with rag reporting anymore…” He added: “Business as usual on my end haters!”
The case adds to growing scrutiny of prediction markets, including Kalshi and Polymarket, over concerns that people with private information can profit at the expense of other traders. In April, Kalshi fined three congressional candidates for betting on their own races, The Guardian reported. That same month, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier was taken into custody over bets tied to the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Polymarket, and NPR reported that federal prosecutors accused him of making more than $400,000. NPR also reported that last week the Justice Department charged a Google employee with making more than $1 million by correctly betting on search trends using confidential company information.
Santos, 37, represented New York’s 3rd District before being expelled from Congress in December 2023. He had taken office in January 2023 after campaigning on claims later shown to be false, including that he graduated from Baruch College in the top 1% of his class, that his mother was in the South Tower of the World Trade Center during the Sept. 11 attacks, that he was Jewish and that his grandparents escaped the Holocaust.
“Virtually everything that he put out about himself when he was running for office was manufactured,” Jonathan Entin, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, told NPR.
Santos was indicted in May 2023 on federal charges including wire fraud, money laundering and stealing money from political donors. The Guardian reported that he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft and was sentenced in April 2025 to seven years in prison. Months later, Trump commuted his sentence.
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