Polymarket, Kalshi pour over $5 million into political campaigns amid regulatory heat
Prediction market operators Polymarket, Kalshi, and their founders have given at least $5 million combined to Republican and Democratic political campaigns and committees, according to a Reuters review of campaign finance disclosures published October 22. Polymarket and its CEO have directed roughly $1.3 million to Republican committees and candidates, per separate records. The spending includes a previously unreported $1 million donation by Polymarket to a Democratic nonprofit that does not disclose its donors. The giving comes as both platforms face heightened scrutiny from state regulators and federal lawmakers over their political event contracts and operations.
The donation spree turns political spending into a survival strategy for prediction market operators whose legal shields are cracking. Kalshi already lost federal preemption in Ohio and Tennessee, and Polymarket faces parallel state suits; each loss becomes template law the next attorney general copies. The $5 million buys access to lawmakers who could stall state enforcement or advance federal rules that restore preemption.
Donald Trump Jr., strategic advisor to both platforms, has urged Republican state attorneys general not to regulate. But campaign cash cannot outpace court clocks. State courts move in weeks while the CFTC's swap-rule proposal remains in White House review. Platforms must now fund three-front legal spend on political, federal, and state battles simultaneously. The first operator to lose another major state case sets the compliance bar every competitor races to clear.
The donation blitz joins a $3 million industry lobbying push Kalshi led just twelve days earlier and a fresh CFTC swap-rule proposal, showing platforms are now funding political, regulatory, and legal channels in parallel to patch a cracking federal preemption shield.