Kalshi cofounder and CEO Tarek Mansour has called for Polymarket’s international operation to move under a stronger regulatory framework, arguing that recent insider-trading allegations risk
Kalshi cofounder and CEO Tarek Mansour has called for Polymarket’s international operation to move under a stronger regulatory framework, arguing that recent insider-trading allegations risk damaging confidence across the prediction-market sector.
In an interview at Kalshi’s New York headquarters, Mansour also played down the idea that Polymarket is his company’s defining rival. He pointed instead to a broader field that includes CME-linked products, Robinhood, Coinbase, DraftKings and other platforms moving into event contracts.
The comments shift the competition away from a simple Kalshi-versus-Polymarket contest. Kalshi is positioning itself as regulated financial infrastructure, while Polymarket’s largest markets and deepest crypto-native liquidity remain tied to its international platform.
Polymarket now has a regulated U.S. operation through QCX, which appears in the CFTC’s designated contract market register under the Polymarket US name.
That structure is separate from the international platform where much of Polymarket’s trading activity still occurs. Mansour’s criticism was directed at that global operation rather than the CFTC-regulated U.S. exchange.
The distinction has become more important as Polymarket’s scale expands. The platform recently crossed more than $76 billion in lifetime notional volume, giving its market rules, surveillance systems and resolution standards wider influence over the sector’s reputation.
Two federal cases have intensified scrutiny around trading on Polymarket’s international markets.
A U.S. Army soldier was charged in April with allegedly using classified information to earn more than $400,000 from contracts tied to the timing of a U.S. operation involving Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
In May, prosecutors charged a Google software engineer who allegedly used confidential Year in Search data to make approximately $1.2 million through Polymarket trades. Both cases remain allegations, and the defendants are entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Polymarket has already moved to strengthen surveillance through Chainalysis, while the growth of profitable public wallets and copy-trading has made market-integrity controls increasingly important.
Kalshi’s regulated status gives the CFTC and the exchange direct authority to investigate trading behavior, preserve audit trails and impose penalties. It does not prevent improper activity entirely.
The CFTC highlighted two Kalshi cases in February involving alleged misuse of nonpublic information and trading by people with influence over contract outcomes. Kalshi investigated the activity, recovered profits, imposed financial penalties and suspended the traders.
That enforcement structure is central to Mansour’s argument. Regulation does not guarantee clean markets, but it creates defined surveillance duties, disciplinary procedures and an outside regulator capable of pursuing misconduct.
Kalshi’s own expansion has accelerated rapidly, including a $1 billion funding round at a $22 billion valuation. As both platforms move deeper into sports, politics, finance and crypto, their competition will increasingly be judged through liquidity, market access and how quickly suspicious trading is detected and punished.
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