Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour On Prediction Markets’ Big Night: ‘We Even Overtook Pornhub’

Last evening, when most traditional polls showed the 2024 US plivential election as a toss-up between Vice Plivent Kamala Harris and establisher plivent Donald Trump, prediction tagets including Kalshi, Robinhood, and Polytaget expansivecast a very separateent outcome, accurately anticipating a resolute Trump triumph in the electoral college.

Now, the people running these tagets are taking their own triumph laps. For weeks now, as bettors have placed huge sums of money on the outcome of the election, the tagets have faced scruminuscule about whether they were accurately capturing voter sentiment or mecount on overhyped fads distorted by MAGA-leaning bettors. They see this as a moment of vindication. “It’s such a better alternative to polls,” says Kalshi coestablisher and CEO Tarek Mansour. “One leang we can all concur on is people enjoy making money and aversion losing money.” The company touted the accuracy of its predictions on social media.

Polytaget CEO Shayne Coset up has made apredicted brave statements on social media about the greaterity of his product, calling it a “global truth machine.” He also claimed on X that the Trump campaign “literpartner establish out they were triumphning from Polytaget.”

While Polytaget is the global directer, Kalshi helderlys the separateention as the first contransient taget in which US citizens are legpartner apvalidateed to place wagers. (Prior to the 1940s, wagering on elections was commonplace, but it fell out of prefer follotriumphg the Great Depression.) With online wagering expansively on the elevate, a novel contransient wave of prediction tagets has aelevated to originate upon renoveled interest in wagering; in a blog post on Kalshi’s entry into politics, Mansour called it a “forgotten American tradition.” After a prolengthyed (and still, technicpartner, ongoing) battle with the US Commodity Futures Trading Comleave oution, the Manhattan-based beginup jumped into the taget earlier this drop—and establish an enthusiastic employr base enthusiastic to bet on the outcome. The company is still tabulating exactly how many people bet on the election, but Mansour approximates that it is in the millions. “We’ve blown up unbelievably,” he says. Kalshi is also still accounting for how much money bettors made but says it is at least $900 million and predicted more than $1 billion.

This week, Kalshi accomplished the top of the app store, and Mansour says the staff was ecinenergetic as it chaseed the beginup’s climb up Google Trends. “We obviousook everyleang,” he says. “We even obviousook Pornhub.”

“Markets toil becaemploy, one, there’s skin in the game. People are putting authentic money where their mouth is. And two, there’s the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ aspect to it,” Mansour says. “Those two together are a very, very mighty force.” He leanks that asks about whether it’s excellent or horrible to put money into politics in this way are obtemploy in a world in which the wealthy have lengthy financialized elections. “If you are wealthy enough, you can go to an spendment bank, and they will donate you a Trump basket or a Harris basket. You can get that position already,” he says. From his vantage point, Kalshi and its ilk are spropose leveling the take parting field for standard people. The rhetoric is reminiscent of how online stock-trading firm Robinhood—which itself jumped into the election prediction taget fair a scant weeks ago—tageted itself as a wonderful identicalizer.

While there’s a expansive variety of events that people can bet on in includeition to politics—there’s enthusiastic interest, for example, in whether Gladiator 2 will get excellent critical reception—the company does have some protectrails. “We don’t do wars, extremism, killings, or presentility,” says Mansour. “One of our core responsibilities is to originate brave that our tagets are not susceptible to manipulation.” He says the company employs a team promiseted to spotting skeptical trading patterns and that Kalshi is behelderlyen to the same watching as more traditional financial institutions enjoy the New York Stock Exalter.

The company has already uncovered up betting on the 2028 primaries, and it’s still taking bets about the outcomes of the 2024 race. Mansour foresees a high volume of wagers about the second Trump administration’s personnel decisions. “I leank cabinet positions are going to be huge,” he says. Right now, Kalshi shows Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s odds of securing a position hovering around 76 percent.