Tarek Mansour, co-founder of prediction market Kalshi, explained the platform’s response after it voided some positions opened following reports that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had died.
“We don’t list markets directly tied to death. When there are markets where potential outcomes involve death, we design the rules to prevent people from profiting from death. That is what we did here,” Mansour wrote on X.
Iranian state media reported Khamenei’s death early Sunday after an attack the previous day. Kalshi said it will reimburse all fees from the “Ali Khamenei out as Supreme Leader” market and pay traders who had positions open before the reported death according to the last-traded price before his death. Users who opened positions after the reported death were reimbursed the difference between the higher entry price they paid and the last-traded price.
A Kalshi spokesperson told Cointelegraph the platform’s policy banning “death markets” is clear and longstanding. The company reiterated the policy publicly, and Mansour said the market’s rules included a death carveout. The decision drew backlash from some users who accused Kalshi of curtailing potential profits.
Separately, concerns about possible insider trading on prediction markets have increased amid geopolitical events. In February, six traders on rival platform Polymarket reportedly netted about $1 million by betting that the US would strike Iran before month’s end. Bloomberg reported that the six wallets were created in February, largely bet on strike-related markets, and some positions were filled hours before explosions were first heard over Tehran, raising suspicions among onchain investigators and analysts.
Earlier reporting tied to US actions in Venezuela also prompted onchain speculation: after a leak related to a raid and capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, then-President Donald Trump said the leaker had been arrested, fueling conjecture that the leak might have benefited recent winning bets on Polymarket.
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