Interview - Kalshi CEO: The Debate Over Gambling, Markets & Politics

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Mosheh Oinounou** (2:00)
Hey everybody, welcome back to a special edition of the Mo News podcast. I'm Moshe Oinounou here with a great conversation for you today. Prediction markets are something we are often talking about, you're often probably hearing about in your lives. Tens of billions of dollars are being traded on them every month, and they've become one of the most talked about trends in politics, in sports, in finance. Supporters say they're often more accurate than polling and expert forecasts. Critics say they're open to corruption and simply gambling with a different label. So we've brought in the co-founder and CEO of the Kalshi prediction market, Tarek Mansour. He joined me in studio for a conversation recently. Mansour has a fascinating story, fascinating origin story born here, raised in Lebanon. We talk a bit about that, how he came around to the idea of Kalshi and we get into all things prediction markets on this podcast. Now we should note that Kalshi is a sponsor of Mo News, yes, but this interview was conducted completely separate from that partnership. So what does that mean? Nothing was off limits in this conversation, and Tarek and his team did not know my questions in advance. This was a straightforward news interview. That's the way we treat them here at Mo News. We never give any questions in advance, and we don't allow the person we're speaking to, to create any limitations for us. We put many of your toughest questions directly to him. I solicited many of your questions over on Instagram, and they included some questions like, why should Kalshi even exist? What are you doing positively for society? Is this different from sports betting? What responsibility do you have? Are you creating gambling addiction out there? Insider trading questions. Why are states trying to ban you?
We had a really open and frank conversation, and I think you're really going to get a lot out of this in terms of understanding how Kalshi works, how prediction markets work, how Kalshi is different from a market like polymarket, where the gambling industry is in all of this and the role that they're playing.
Mansour makes a really interesting case for the role prediction markets he thinks can help when it comes to public discourse. We talk about the comparison to polling, and Tarek talks to me about why putting money behind a prediction can lead people to think more critically about the future and actually leads them to do more research and fact check things. So whether you're a fan of prediction markets or you're deeply skeptical and critical of them, I think you'll find this conversation with the Kalshi co-founder and CEO, Tarek Mansour, both timely and thought provoking. Here we go.