Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour makes the case for prediction markets as legal fights pile up

On the Reuters Econ World podcast, Mansour argued that markets beat polls and pundits while states challenge federal oversight of his business Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour has a simple pitch: if you want to know what will happen, ask people with money on the line. He made that case on Reuters’ Econ World podcast, in an episode that aired on October 21, 2026. The timing is interesting. Mansour is promoting the wisdom of markets while his company fights a multi-state legal battle over whether some of its contracts are legal at all. Host Carmel Crimmins opened by noting that prediction markets seem to be everywhere these days, with Kalshi in the middle of the action. The pitch: markets over pundits Mansour’s central argument is that prediction markets reward people who actually know things. Traders who are right make money. Traders who are wrong lose it. Compare that with a cable news panel, where being wrong costs very little. A pundit can miss an election call and be back on air next week with the same confidence. In the interview, Mansour set prediction markets against traditional polls and commentators. His view is that markets do a better job of pulling scattered infor...