Campaign staffers are placing bets on their own races through betting markets even though one company tried to stop them, NPR reported July 9. At least one campaign worker managed to place a bet on an election they were working for, even after the company installed a new blocking system.

Kalshi, the biggest election betting platform, created a screening tool in May that checks a company's user accounts against a list of known campaign workers to flag and block them. Robert DeNault, who handles enforcement at Kalshi, told NPR that "dozens" of staffers have tried to place bets on their own candidates since the system launched. Kalshi has blocked those bets. But the one confirmed bet that got through shows the system has a gap.

This isn't the first time staffers have been caught betting on elections. NPR reported in May that campaign workers on other betting platforms — Polymarket and PredictIt — were using internal polling numbers their campaigns gave them to place winning bets. Workers on these sites called the platforms a "Wild West." Polymarket said it has referred about 100 suspicious bets to law enforcement, and one led to an arrest. Polymarket and PredictIt declined to comment further on the July 9 story.

Why did Kalshi's system miss someone? The company is checking people's names against a Federal Election Commission database — an official record of campaign workers. But this database doesn't include everyone who helps a campaign. Volunteers, outside lawyers, people hired to do polls, and informal advisers often don't appear in those records. Two former FEC officials told NPR this is by design — the database was built to track money, not to identify every person involved in a campaign. So someone working behind the scenes without a formal title can slip through.

Experts have warned that betting markets could have real consequences for elections. The Brennan Center said that these markets could "fuel misinformation and efforts to influence election outcomes" heading into the 2026 midterm elections.

Kalshi has been cracking down on insider trading since February. The company first publicly punished insider traders on February 25 — one case involved an editor at MrBeast's company. In March, Kalshi announced it would ban politicians and athletes from betting on their own elections or sports. On April 22, the company suspended three congressional candidates for what it called insider trading and fined them.

But Congress has not moved as fast. The House rejected a proposal on May 19 to ban its members and staff from using these betting platforms, even though both Democrats and Republicans called for it. The Senate already has rules against this. As of March, neither chamber had issued official guidance on how to disclose bets on elections, the way they do for stock trades.

The real problem is structural, not the result of one company's mistake. The government database Kalshi is using was built to track campaign money, not to identify people in real time. Millions of dollars flow through these betting markets every week, and the system for catching insiders has not kept pace.