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Kalshi probes shady bets on new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia: report

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Kalshi is probing a series of shady bets about the new White House press secretary, according to a report published hours after Katie Zacharia was named to the high-profile job.

The massive prediction market platform said it was looking into wagers that accurately predicted the conservative commentator would land the role, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

A minimum of three small but precisely-timed bets were reportedly placed on Zacharia not long before news outlets began reporting the news, netting the bettors a few thousands bucks.

The Journal scoured publicly available Kalshi data to find a $19 bet placed around 10:43 p.m. Thursday. That stood to net the bettor $1,896.  

Katie Zacharia, a former Homeland Security spokesperson, has been offered the position of White House press secretary. Katie Zacharia/X

Two more bets reportedly came around 1:41 p.m. Friday, the paper reported. The wagers of $74 and $80 were poised to bring in $7,712 total.

A Kalshi spokeswoman declined to talk about the bets on the White House press secretary, telling The Post, “We can’t comment on ongoing investigations.”

Recent months have seen a number of shady trades on Kalshi and rival Polymarket — which are facing a mountain of litigation from state authorities.

A US special forces soldier was charged in the spring for allegedly using classified information about the mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to win more than $400,000 on the Polymarket.


Illustration of the Kalshi logo.
Recent months have seen a number of shady trades on Kalshi and rival Polymarket. REUTERS

More recently, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission reportedly launched a probe of unusual trading activity on Kalshi after billions of dollars worth of near-identical crypto trades raised questions about possible “wash trading.”

The Post has sought comment from the White House.

Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com