Kalshi’s $2 million commitment makes it NCPG’s first prediction market member as the industry faces pressure over sportsbook-style consumer protections, helpline access and national responsible trading standards
Kalshi is partnering with the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) on a new trader-health initiative, contributing $2 million over two years to support NCPG’s consumer protection work as prediction markets face increased scrutiny over gambling-like risks.
NCPG announced Monday that Kalshi will become the first member of its new Financial Services & Trading Subcategory, joining as a Platinum-level member through its support for the Financial Trader Health and Safety Initiative. The effort will focus on responsible trading education, consumer-protection standards and access to support across prediction markets and other retail trading products.
Kalshi becomes the first prediction market platform to join NCPG as a member, entering an organization whose existing membership already includes several of the largest sportsbook operators in the U.S. NCPG’s organizational members include DraftKings, FanDuel, Fanatics Betting and Gaming, BetMGM, Caesars Entertainment, PENN Entertainment and Rush Street Gaming, as well as sports leagues like the MLB, NBA, NFL and PGA Tour.
“NCPG’s goal has always been to mitigate harm by increasing education, awareness, and understanding of risky behaviors, while ensuring access to trusted, scientific, and evidence-based information and healthcare resources,” Heather L. Maurer, executive director of NCPG, said in the announcement. “Innovation and responsibility can and must evolve together. Kalshi’s engagement demonstrates a commitment to mitigating harm before it occurs and ensuring support resources are accessible when they are needed.”
The partnership gives Kalshi a high-profile responsible trading credential as lawmakers, regulators and public-health advocates argue prediction market platforms lack the consumer protections required of state-regulated sportsbooks. Those protections have become a central point of criticism as sports event contracts continue to drive significant trading volume, with questions focused on whether platforms should be required to offer comparable tools around limits, timeouts, self-exclusion, helpline access and advertising standards.
Tarek Mansour, co-founder and CEO of Kalshi, posted on X about the partnership, saying the company is funding the new Financial Trading category. “We want to set a new standard for the industry and hope other retail financial platforms join us,” Mansour said in the post.
NCPG adapts responsible gambling framework for trading
NCPG’s new subcategory gives Kalshi a way to engage with consumer-protection work through the language of financial trading, rather than sports betting or gambling. That distinction matters for a prediction market operator that has consistently argued its event contracts are federally regulated financial products, even as state gambling regulators and attorneys general challenge sports contracts as illegal betting.
The structure also shows how NCPG is approaching prediction markets. Rather than treating Kalshi only as a gambling-adjacent company, the nonprofit is placing prediction markets inside a larger retail trading risk category that can include products like options, futures, crypto and day trading.
Cole Wogoman, NCPG’s government relations manager, told Axios, which broke the news of the partnership, that Kalshi’s participation shows the company is acknowledging potential risks tied to prediction markets.
“They’re showing leadership here right now by recognizing that harm can be caused” on prediction markets, Wogoman said, adding that Kalshi’s willingness to work with NCPG “speaks volumes.”
Wogoman also told Axios that Kalshi will work toward accreditation through NCPG’s responsible gambling standards as part of the grant. He said NCPG is updating its standards document to make it more applicable to prediction markets, while stressing that the existing standards are “already very applicable to prediction markets.”
NCPG says trader-health resources have not kept pace
NCPG’s new Financial Trader Health and Safety Initiative hub gives more detail on how the nonprofit plans to approach prediction markets as part of a wider retail trading risk category.
The hub says retail participation has increased across multiple forms of trading over the last decade. NCPG says the initiative will expand education and awareness of responsible trading across financial markets, with “practical, evidence-informed resources” meant to support safer engagement and mitigate harm.
NCPG says trading risks can include impulsive behavior, chasing losses and financial harm, language that mirrors common responsible gambling concerns while applying them to financial market products.
In an FAQ on the new hub, NCPG says it launched the initiative because retail trading products are growing faster than the support systems around them.
“Financial markets and trading platforms with large retail participation, including day trading, options, futures, cryptocurrencies, and prediction markets, are expanding quickly, but the infrastructure for education, consumer protection, and support has not kept pace,” NCPG says on the page. “NCPG has identified a gap in national resources focused on trader health and is actively working to address it before harm escalates.”
How Kalshi will present NCPG’s helpline remains unresolved. Axios reported that Kalshi and NCPG had not agreed on details for promoting 1-800-MY-RESET, with the discussion focused partly on whether the resource should be framed differently for prediction market users.
“We want to see 1-800-MY-RESET promoted on these apps, and that’s what we are working on,” Wogoman told Axios. “Is there language we could use, rather than calling it the National Problem Gambling Helpline? Is there something we could use that would make traders or customers more comfortable calling if they’re feeling that they are running into problems?”
An NCPG spokesperson told DeFi Rate the helpline question remains “an ongoing conversation.”
The NCPG partnership extends a responsible trading push Kalshi had already begun before Monday’s announcement.
Kalshi formally rolled out a Customer Protection Hub in March 2025, introducing user safeguards including deposit caps, trading breaks and voluntary opt-outs. By early 2026, the company had added a dedicated Responsible Trading hub, which gives users directions for accessing those account-level tools and provides additional resources for people who may need help.
Kalshi has continued to add to those controls this year. In April, the company became the first prediction market platform to integrate with SelfExclude, a cross-platform self-exclusion system operated by Integrity Compliance 360. The system is designed to let users block themselves from trading across multiple participating prediction market platforms through a single enrollment, rather than limiting activity account by account.
The company also announced additional customer-protection measures earlier this month, including tools aimed at preventing unauthorized access by minors and identifying potentially risky trading behavior. Kalshi said those measures include Face ID defaults, selfie requests for higher-risk users, two-factor authentication reminders, an ID Check feature, an Inner Circle tool that lets users share activity with trusted contacts and deposit-limit recommendations based on account activity.
Mansour framed the NCPG partnership as part of that same effort.
“At Kalshi, we believe in the power of prediction markets, and we are sensitive to the fact that they, like any financial trading products, come with risks,” Kalshi’s Mansour said in Monday’s NCPG announcement. “As prediction markets continue to evolve, we are deeply committed to setting a new standard for responsible trading by investing in the tools, education, and protections needed to promote healthy participation and customer safety, and hope that over time all trading platforms with significant retail participation follow suit.”
Platforms try to define safeguards before regulators do
Kalshi’s responsible trading push comes as prediction market operators are also trying to show they can manage other risks that have drawn public attention, including market integrity and potential insider trading.
Kalshi has been vocal about its surveillance and integrity controls in the wake of headline-grabbing examples of suspicious event contract trading.
Polymarket made a similar public case Sunday evening, posting on X that it has built market integrity infrastructure combining insider trading rules, AI-powered surveillance and blockchain forensics. The post came as 60 Minutes aired a segment focused on suspicious prediction market trades, including activity on Polymarket.
The timing underscored a larger industry effort to answer critics before regulators impose their own standards. During the public comment period for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s event contract rulemaking process, NCPG urged the agency to require prediction market platforms to adopt responsible gambling standards, including rules around account information, limit setting, timeouts, self-exclusion, access to help, advertising and age of participation. The group said those standards could serve as a roadmap for the CFTC and prediction market platforms.
Kalshi’s NCPG partnership now puts that debate into practice. If the company can turn responsible trading tools into a model other platforms adopt, it could help shift the industry from platform-by-platform safeguards toward a more uniform national framework.
