Kalshi: Wedgewood’s fake polling did not meaningfully impact markets

On October 20, 2026, Wedgewood polling published a press release claiming that they created a “fabricated polling firm” acting as “an experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern polling industry.” Wedgewood released this statement ahead of a report by FiftyPlusOne, exposing the fraud. Wedgewood’s admission shocked the polling industry because it was included in many major media outlets,  polling aggregators, and forecasts.

Please note: Kalshi’s investigative team is already moving quickly, collecting evidence and conducting interviews with relevant traders to get to the bottom of the story.

Kalshi has found that election markets mostly did not move in response to Wedgewood's polls (Figure A). It appears that Wedgewood polls only impacted market prices after their Wisconsin Democratic Governor primary poll (July 21, 2026) showing Francesca Hong with 38%, Mandela Barnes with 30%, and David Crowley at 9% temporarily moved Barnes' price up 4.5% and Crowley's price 6% (Figure B). Across Wedgewood's other 14 polls, their fabricated survey did not materially impact market prices, including the Michigan Democratic Senate primary, Louisiana Republican Senate primary, and others. Furthermore, once the Wedgewood polling fraud was revealed, market prices did not move (Figure C).

With the advent of low-quality polls, partisan push polls, and sometimes, completely fraudulent polls, prediction markets play an even more important role in politics. Prediction markets give traders a financial incentive to scrutinize  data and sniff out fabricated polls. That’s exactly what happened here. 

Kalshi’s surveillance team is conducting a preliminary review of all trading activity in markets with a connection to Wedgewood polling. But the lack of price reaction to Wedgewood’s polling in the relevant markets makes it unlikely there were substantial profits for any would-be wrongdoers. Further, exchange and regulatory enforcement procedures mean any would-be wrongdoers can be held accountable – whether they were successful or not.

On October 20, users on social media identified an individual who may be connected to Wedgewood that also appears to have a public Kalshi account. This individual created a Kalshi account in February 2025, more than a year before Wedgewood existed. A vast majority of this user’s trading occurred before the June 2026 launch of Wedgewood.

The user traded in 101 markets after the launch of Wedgewood, accounting for $1,201.88 in their lifetime profits. Of these, 25 were unrelated to elections and politics; 74 were related to elections and politics, but only a fraction of those were markets that had any connection to a Wedgewood poll. The user’s net profits across all Wedgewood-related markets was just $194.44, and, in a majority of Wedgewood-related trades, the user actually lost money and did not profit.

What does this tell us? The preliminary evidence reviewed suggests that prediction market prices were in most cases not affected by Wedgewood polls and that, where there was price impact, it was minimal and did not yield substantial profits for would-be wrongdoers (in fact, in most instances, the flagged user in question lost money). 

It is easy to claim that because prediction markets have recently grown in popularity, they must be responsible for new polling fraud. But the data does not support that conclusion. 

In nearly every market that these fake polls could have influenced, they failed to have any effect. In the small number of markets where they did, the effect was either consistent with other available polls or information at the time, or so minor that would-be manipulators could not figure out how to successfully profit.  On the other hand, the purveyors appear to have raked in tens of thousands of dollars – dwarfing the $194 in net profits on relevant prediction market trades – that were paid by political organizations for these polls. If polling fraud has always existed, then prediction markets have quickly proved more resilient to its influence than many traditional sources that interpret and promote polls to voters. 

Importantly, this investigation remains ongoing. We are sharing these preliminary results because of the public information circulating regarding this trader’s account. Kalshi’s election market rules prohibit trading by anyone with material non-public information and by parties affiliated with polling organizations. Further, our exchange rules also prohibit anyone from engaging or attempting to engage in fraudulent or manipulative activity. Rest assured that if anyone affiliated with Wedgewood is confirmed to have traded (even unsuccessfully) on Kalshi markets from which they were prohibited, they will face investigation, punishment, and possible referral to law enforcement. 

It’s unclear what the motivations of Wedgewood were here, but Kalshi’s internal data shows that the primary motivation was not to profit on or manipulate its markets. This episode does highlight key vulnerabilities in the polling industry. Polls can play an important role in how traders think about a race, but this is another reminder that not every poll deserves to be taken at face value.

We live in a world where information is increasingly more abundant and truth is increasingly more scarce. Kalshi aims to increase civic engagement and improve the electoral process, by providing as much transparency and information as possible. We want people to make their own independent assessments, we want to encourage and incentivize independent thinking, research, knowledge seeking, challenging of the status quo, and self-calibration. 

Prediction markets are an antidote to polarization, partisan narratives, and misinformation. Data on prediction markets comes from the aggregated wisdom of the people, not a centralized organization with an agenda. 

This is the beauty of regulated marketplaces: they are more resistant to misinformation and there are mechanisms in place to hand out real punishments for wrongdoing. It is unclear how campaigns and the legal system should handle fake polls, but Kalshi has clear mechanisms for prohibiting people with MNPI from trading, detecting attempts of market manipulation, and punishing individuals who violate their rules.

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