Federal regulator probing Trump critic Adam Kinzinger for betting on his own pardon
By Marshall Cohen, CNN
(CNN) — Federal regulators are investigating former Rep. Adam Kinzinger for trading on the prediction platform Kalshi about a pardon he received from former President Joe Biden, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
Biden pardoned Kinzinger last year during the final hours of his presidency, along with other members of the House committee that investigated Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. The preemptive pardons were needed, Biden argued, to protect the lawmakers from possible retaliation by the incoming Trump administration.
Prediction platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket let users wager on nearly everything – including sports, entertainment, elections and other political news.
Kinzinger, a Republican and prominent Trump critic, traded less than $1,000 on two pardon-related Kalshi markets in late 2024 and early 2025, sources said, and betted that he would get a pardon from Biden.
He acknowledged making the trades in an interview with CNN but said he never had any insider information about the pardons. He was a private citizen at the time of the trades – out of Congress and not running for office. Kinzinger is a CNN contributor.
A person familiar with the matter said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator that polices prediction markets, is looking into Kinzinger’s trades. Career enforcement officials started scrutinizing the Biden pardon markets on both Kalshi and Polymarket after seeing press reports about potential insider activity, the source said.
Politico previously reported the CFTC inquiry into Kinzinger, which is the first publicly known federal probe into pardon markets on prediction sites.
CNN has maintained a partnership with Kalshi since December and uses its data to cover major events, but CNN editorial employees aren’t permitted to use prediction markets.
The CFTC and Kalshi declined to comment.
‘It was a dumb bet’
In an interview with CNN, Kinzinger admitted to making the trades, saying they were two of a “few dozen” bets he placed about political topics. He said he had reviewed Kalshi’s rules beforehand and that he believed his actions did not violate the rules. He shared screenshots with CNN showing that he wagered a total of $669 and netted $823.
“It was a dumb bet, to bet on myself,” Kinzinger said. “Looking back, I’m like, yeah, I wish I’d have skipped it. But everything I saw at the time was like, you’re within your right to bet on this.”
He also denied that he engaged in insider trading, primarily because he says he did not have any advance knowledge of the pardons and did not discuss potential pardons with the Biden White House. He said he hasn’t heard from any government investigators.
“At no point, ever, had I had a conversation with anybody in the know about pardons (or) whether I’d get pardoned,” Kinzinger said. “Certainly, nobody in the White House or anybody that would know anything.”
Kalshi also uncovered Kinzinger’s trades during a broader look into “suspicious” activity and flagged them to the CFTC, another person familiar with the matter said.
The source said Kalshi tried to get in touch with Kinzinger, but he did not respond. It’s common for Kalshi to try to internally settle its probes when small amounts of money are involved and when the trader cooperates. Kinzinger told CNN he never heard from Kalshi.
Calls for more regulation
Prediction platforms have exploded in popularity this year and now see billions of dollars in weekly trading volume. But as they’ve grown, so have calls for more regulation.
Last month, Kalshi fined several political candidates for betting on their own campaigns, violating the company’s insider-trading rules.
The CFTC also recently settled a case with the former Trump White House teleprompter operator for “unlawful” bets on Kalshi about what Trump would say in his speeches. And they settled with former Rep. George Santos for improper trades about whether he would attend the State of the Union.
A bipartisan coalition of 44 states have urged the CFTC to rein in prediction platforms. So have dozens of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who are backing legislation that would stiffen penalties against insider trading.
Among those who want more regulation is Kinzinger himself. He wrote in a November 2025 Substack post that Kalshi and other prediction sites are a “corruption time bomb” and a “threat to democracy” because politicians can profit from insider knowledge.
The-CNN-Wire
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