Kalshi Bettors Headache over $4.4Million Cardi B Prediction

• Kalshi freezes Cardi B halftime market after ambiguous Super Bowl appearance
  
• Traders file CFTC complaint alleging unfair, discretionary settlement rules
  
• Case echoes earlier invasion disputes in geopolitical prediction markets

Kalshi’s CEO Tarek Mansour confirmed today that the prediction platform hit north of $1 billion in trading volume on Super Bowl Sunday, a massive jump over last year. A good chunk of that involved the non-game market, with over $100 million traded on the halftime show’s opening song alone.

But traders who bet $4.4 million on whether Cardi B would “perform” during the show were not sharing Mansour’s feelgood vibes today. In fact, some have sent a formal complaint to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal body that regulates Kalshi, alleging unfair settlement practice.

The problem was that “Big Cardi” did indeed show up at Bad Bunny’s halftime show. She danced, lip-synced, and mugged to the camera in a way that most humans would describe as “a performance,” even though she was never center stage.

What Performance?

Not Kalshi, though, whose rules state that “dancing or appearing on stage without singing/playing instruments” does not constitute a performance, cameo or otherwise.

Kalshi spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana admitted to Business Insider that the situation was ambiguous. She acknowledged the South Bronx rapper “was at the very least mouthing the words when dancing,” but added it was unclear “if she was singing,” concluding it was “impossible to tell either way.”

So instead of forcing a binary call, Kalshi froze the market and closed it at a weighted price.

In contrast, Polymarket was happy to let Cardi do her thing and just paid out, accepting the feisty cameo as a bona fide “performance.”

But the CFTC complaint takes issue with the prediction platform’s invocation of a rule that gave it sole discretion to settle contracts when there’s an ambiguity that’s not addressed by its terms and conditions. This deprived traders of the benefit of a correct prediction and caused them financial harm, per the complaint.

The filing also argues Kalshi failed to provide sufficiently clear, objective criteria for judging what constitutes a “performance.”

What Invasion?

Prediction platforms like Polymarket also ran markets on whether the US would invade Venezuela. After US forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, many bettors expected “Yes” to be paid out.

But Polymarket ruled that the operation did not satisfy the contract’s definition of an invasion, leaving more than $10 million in bets unresolved or losing.

Words like “invasion” and “performance” may be subjective, but it is a problem prediction platforms will need to address if they want to offer markets spanning everything from pop cultural events to geopolitical crises.