# Tarek Mansour **Tarek Mansour** (born 1996) is co-founder and CEO of [[Kalshi]], the largest U.S. prediction market. He founded it in 2018 with [[Luana Lopes Lara]], whom he met at MIT, and built it on a bet the other side of the industry did not make: be regulated by the [[CFTC]] from day one, then use that federal license to reach places state gambling law would not allow. ## Background Mansour is Lebanese-American. He earned a bachelor's in mathematics and computer science from MIT in 2018, interned at Goldman Sachs in 2016, and traded at [[Citadel]] Securities before leaving to start Kalshi. He has cited his time in finance as the inspiration for a market where people trade directly on events. Kalshi won CFTC designation and launched in July 2021. ## What he built | Step | Date | |---|---| | Kalshi founded | 2018 | | CFTC-designated exchange launches | July 2021 | | Federal court lets Kalshi list contracts on control of Congress, beating the CFTC | 2024 | | [[Donald Trump Jr.]] joins as paid strategic adviser | January 2025 | | Kalshi board member [[Brian Quintenz]] nominated to chair the CFTC (withdrawn October 2025) | February 2025 | | Valuation reaches about $11 billion; Mansour and Lopes Lara become billionaires | December 2025 | | Kalshi co-founds the [[Coalition for Prediction Markets]] | December 2025 | | $1 billion raise at $22 billion, led by [[Coatue Management]] | May 2026 | | About $40 billion in monthly volume, mostly sports | July 2026 | The pivot that made Kalshi big was sports. A company sold to regulators as a place to hedge economic risk now does most of its business on game outcomes, and in court it has conceded that those contracts have "no inherent economic significance," a concession the Sixth Circuit quoted back at it in September 2026 (see [[KalshiEX v. Flaherty]]). ## Accountability - **Congress.** On August 26, 2026, Sens. [[Alex Padilla]] and [[Mark Warner]] wrote to Mansour and Polymarket's [[Shayne Coplan]] about paid influencers spreading false claims about California elections, and asked whether influencers may bet on the markets they promote. - **Self-policing.** In August 2026 Kalshi banned [[George Santos]] for life and fined him $71,356 for betting against his own attendance at the State of the Union, and suspended a North Carolina House candidate for betting on her own race. Enforcement against political insiders is being done by the exchange, at its own discretion. - **The states.** Kalshi is fighting state attorneys general and gaming regulators across the country over whether its sports contracts are illegal gambling. The appeals courts are split, and the question is headed to the Supreme Court. ## See also - [[Kalshi]] · [[Luana Lopes Lara]] · [[Coalition for Prediction Markets]] · [[KalshiEX v. Flaherty]] - [[Prediction Markets]] · [[Sports Betting]] · [[Prediction Markets and Gambling Sector]]