The editor of YouTube’s most popular creator, MrBeast, has been accused of insider trading on the Kalshi prediction market.
After investigating, Kalshi said he “found reasonable cause” to believe that editor Artem Kaptur used non-public, insider information about MrBeast videos to inform his bets on matters relating to the MrBeast YouTube channel.
Prediction markets such as Kalshi and rival Polymarket allow users to place bets on a wide range of future events, such as who will win a political election, how many albums a certain musician will sell in a week, or when a sequel to a popular movie will be announced.
Kalshi did not disclose the specific bets Kaptur placed on MrBeast, but some markets on the platform allow users to bet on what words the creator will say during an upcoming video — private information that a video editor could realistically influence. Kalshi users can also trade when MrBeast gets married or when his company Beast Industries announces its IPO.
A spokesperson for Beast Industries told TechCrunch that the company does not condone this behavior and that this attitude extends to company employees as well as contestants on MrBeast’s Amazon Prime show “Beast Games.” Competitors are also advised that their knowledge of confidential information precludes them from participating in the related prediction markets.
“We have already launched an independent investigation into this particular matter as part of our overall ongoing efforts to ensure the integrity of our workplace and the trust of our global audience,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We welcome that the Kalshi – and hopefully others in the universe – are also taking this issue seriously, but it only works if they’re willing to share their findings, so we hope they’ll be more open about it in the future.”
Kalshi says Kaptur traded around $4,000 in YouTube streaming markets in August and September 2025. He made a profit of $5,397.58, prompting Kalshi to be fined that amount plus $15,000. Kalshi also banned Kaptur for two years. The company said on its blog that it is donating the fine to a non-profit organization focused on consumer education.
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Kalshi also ended up with Kyle Langford, a candidate for political office in California, who exchanged about $200 for his own candidacy and then posted about it on social media.
Markets on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket are so large that it is challenging to ensure that users trading on them do not use private knowledge to their advantage, which is against the rules. In the case of securities such as stocks, similar behavior carries a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison.
The potential for manipulation of these markets has drawn the attention of US lawmakers.
Last month, one Polymarket user suspiciously bet $32,000 that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be ousted from power by the end of January — just hours later, Maduro was captured by the US military, earning the user a $400,000 payout.
In response, Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has proposed legislation that would prohibit government employees from trading in prediction markets related to government policy, government action or political outcomes.
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said in a Linkedin post last month that he supports the bill because Kalshi already follows the rules it will enforce. He claimed that the alleged cases of insider trading do not occur on US-based platforms (both Kalshi and Polymarket are based in the US).
“This US bill applies only to regulated US companies, not to unregulated non-US companies where the alleged problems are occurring,” Mansour wrote. “Prediction markets, like any industry, are not a monolith: there are important differences that matter.”
Updated 02/25/25 3:45 PM ET with comment from Beast Industries.