Kalshi caught changing rules last minute, making users lose money

[Accardo]

Kalshi took their chances when they saw it, for this action, which would seem to many supposed winners as devious, they'd have to gain money and publicity, but risks their customer service. Many people will lose trust on the prediction market.  

[Kelward]

If no rules before that does not exclude death as part of reasons the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will not be considered to have left office, that means Kalshi obviously scammed its users that got the prediction right. The Iranian  supreme leader has been killed in the ongoing war between United States/Isreal and Iran, that definitely and literally also means that he is out of office. The prediction site should be sued by those that won the money.

I totally agree with you that if the rules before placing the prediction about Iranian supreme leader leaving office didn't exclude death and suddenly death was made an exclusion after he died then it is a clear scam. This is a very big dent on the reputation of Kalshi, I doubt that predictors who hears about this scam will trust them to place prediction on their site after this daylight robbery. Maybe a lot of people have predicted on their site that the supreme leader was going to leave office due to the heat from America, and the payouts will be too much for them and they had to quickly change the terms inorder not to pay the winners. If kalshi, is a licenced platform in their country they should consider suing them. Kalshi, should have known that it's mainly through death that a supreme leader can leave office.

[Fiatless]

See the above image and share your thoughts.
 
It is known that prediction market owners and operators have the upper hand in deciding how to close a market but this level of nonsense observed in situations like this draws extra attention.

A user bet that Iran's supreme leader would be out of office by April 1st and the platform changed the rules last minute to exclude death. That's a crazy take if I've ever heard one.

What nonsense? The guy clearly won the prediction and should be paid without delay. Changing the rules is clearly targeted at defrauding winners. Out of office is out of office regardless of the cause. When Ayatollah Khanemei dies, he is out of: there are no complications about the interpretation. Kalshi is simply chasing customers out of its platform with this kind of negative behaviour.

This is one of the important aspects of regulations. There should be a government body that users can report to. These bodies should be able to investigate complaints and mandate Kalshi to pay users in such clear situations. This is broad daylight robbery.

[Strongkored]

This case proves that betting with a bookmaker on events with more certain outcomes, such as sports, is much more trustworthy, as the bookmaker won't change the rules just because its players are winning.
Kalshi damaged his own reputation with this bad behavior, which serves as a warning to his users that they might be the next victims.

[Hatchy]

So long a system is being created and operated from the back end by third parties we can expect certain things like this for example to occur. These casinos or predictions market are centralized and that's a fact. They claim to offer games that are probably fair but in my opinion, and from what I've seen over the years, they just aren't fair to the player. I've seen cases where players wins a certain amount and suddenly casino brings out rules that seem like the player abused the system for cheated, with no sound evidence of what the player actually did. This case might be the worse and would make people stop trusting their market. If you can't be realistic then don't offer such a service, not you changing rules at the last minutes just to suit your goals..

[asriloni]

If Kalshi's contract were against the federal rules. So it's their fault, they should at least give reimbursement to the bettors who bet on such contract. It's all due to the Kalshi's amateurish in writing proper contract. So they written an ambiguous contract which is against the federal's law.

It should be an awareness for people to never use Kalshi anymore due to their incompetency in writing the contract. Just don't let Kalshi to hold your money.  

[bitbollo]

Oracle markets not completely decentralized and tied to a specific rules/conditions will be always ruled by such issues.
I am still surprised that few issues have been described on the forum and only insider trading has been showed.
This has always been a basic controversy that has not yet been addressed.

I would not waste time trying to fill a claim against them. If amount involved is not enough this could be a negative ROI and not only a waste of time.

[justinlamode]

This is a very delicate issue that can be interpreted in many ways. The user picked Khanemei out of office which means being overthrown by the protest that erupted. Death technically means him out of office but someone can argue that he was not overthrown and therefore still in office until his death. However, Kalshi is supposed to honor the winning to save the face of their business.

[Free Market Capitalist]

If Kalshi's contract were against the federal rules. So it's their fault, they should at least give reimbursement to the bettors who bet on such contract. It's all due to the Kalshi's amateurish in writing proper contract. So they written an ambiguous contract which is against the federal's law.

It should be an awareness for people to never use Kalshi anymore due to their incompetency in writing the contract. Just don't let Kalshi to hold your money.  

That's right, what they can't do is change the rules halfway through the bet. If they've screwed up, they should own up to it and act accordingly, but what they can't do is change the rules to suit themselves under the guise of a legal pretext. As you say, at the very least they should offer a refund for the screw-up.

[Wapfika]

This is a very delicate issue that can be interpreted in many ways. The user picked Khanemei out of office which means being overthrown by the protest that erupted. Death technically means him out of office but someone can argue that he was not overthrown and therefore still in office until his death. However, Kalshi is supposed to honor the winning to save the face of their business.

He was overthrown if he is not already in control which should be applied if the person was already dead. There’s no specific rule that he should be thrown out of the office alive.

Death, capture or coup are the options which this bet should win if the additional rules didn’t introduce.

I don’t on this kind of event since it’s unethical for me to place wager on war. But my answer is just based on the pure context of the bet description.

[goldkingcoiner]

See the above image and share your thoughts.
 
It is known that prediction market owners and operators have the upper hand in deciding how to close a market but this level of nonsense observed in situations like this draws extra attention.

A user bet that Iran's supreme leader would be out of office by April 1st and the platform changed the rules last minute to exclude death. That's a crazy take if I've ever heard one.

If they had not implemented this rule in writing during the time of the contract, then they are obligated to honor whichever terms they had agreed on in the past. Anything else is a scam. I think that guy would have a case. Unless of course death was mentioned in the rules and conditions as something that cannot be bet on. But either way, he is out of office. So them changing the rules now is definitely wrong and what I consider theft.

[KTChampions]

See the above image and share your thoughts.
 
It is known that prediction market owners and operators have the upper hand in deciding how to close a market but this level of nonsense observed in situations like this draws extra attention.

A user bet that Iran's supreme leader would be out of office by April 1st and the platform changed the rules last minute to exclude death. That's a crazy take if I've ever heard one.

I initially heard that Kalshi was a cheap copy of Polymarket and there was nothing to do there (since the platform is aimed at US regulators), but after this scam, I don’t understand who would be interested in this platform at all. It could only be those idiots (from the US) who can't install a VPN and register from another country.
By the way, since there are a significant number of US citizens there, it would be interesting to see lawsuits against such actions of the platform, it seems that even from a legal standpoint, this is fraud.

[Shinpako09]

Seriously, that’s a bad take. They put their reputation at risk by doing that. If they get away with this now, they might do the same thing again. They should have at least paid it since it was their fault for not making the rules clear from the very start. Getting killed should have been included, since that’s also one way to remove him from office. They should have paid it first and then applied that rule to the next event instead.

[rdbase]

As far as i know CFTC already prohibited to list the contract that linked up to the someone's death. So i think it's the reason Kalshi was reversing that bettor's bet caused by it's against the regulation of CFTC.

They're a licensed company. So they have to follow the regulation. This is also the reason i can't really blame them to do that, but at the same time it's laughable when they try to stand the moral while they run a prediction market.

Allowing customers to place these contracts on somebody's death does seem to cross the line. Even if they a tyrant such as he was.
These sound like death dealings and that would tarnish a company brand which is offered globally and not some back alley site where you usually see such markets on alongside those chicken fighting to the death matches.

Prediction market can be manipulated

Yeah these types of prediction markets are more prone to manipulations. Let's say someone put his money on the fact that X will go on war against Y before a particular date. Now, who is there to decide what constitutes as an official act of war? Besides that, different stakeholders can choose the date as per their own advantage/narrative. Media reports can not be trusted and worst, there will be no retrospective settlement in case something went wrong.

No different from what the casinos do that offer these type of markets.
They can state that their rules were not including certain outcomes and void the bets made.

[iv4n]

...That's a crazy take if I've ever heard one.

It's crazy and unfair! It's not the first time we have seen something like this happen, but this looks like another level... like they found a hole and they decided to take advantage.

Kalshi is new to me... they didn't even start their journey, and they already make mistakes like this one. This is a big red flag, but will people understand it and move away? Will this affect their reputation in the long run?

[Findingnemo]

So if death isn't included then how is it even possible to remove someone who is there in that place for almost 4 decades?

I really don't understand the fetish behind those bet on weird and strange things but when they do that is not very common then it is easier to manipulate the rules because they only got few players to deal with and apparantely this just shows that they just want people to lose their bets no matter what.

[Ziskinberg]

This case proves that betting with a bookmaker on events with more certain outcomes, such as sports, is much more trustworthy, as the bookmaker won't change the rules just because its players are winning.
Kalshi damaged his own reputation with this bad behavior, which serves as a warning to his users that they might be the next victims.

No, it’s not about comparing the market or the game. The focus should be on the provider or platform, because they’re the ones handling the funds and implementing the rules. Prediction markets and sports betting both operate under clear rules. As long as both bettors and the platform follow those rules, there shouldn’t be issues. But if the platform, especially the one taking the money, fails to follow them, then complaints are justified. If proven true, that would seriously damage their reputation.

By the way, how about their rival Polymarket? Do they offer the same markets? Have they changed the rules as well?

[Sandra_hakeem]

It is known that prediction market owners and operators have the upper hand in deciding how to close a market but this level of nonsense observed in situations like this draws extra attention.

Afaik, that wasn't the proper way to close an active market with so many games on it already. Voids, strict Continental policies are understandable, but just an informal excuse?

A user bet that Iran's supreme leader would be out of office by April 1st and the platform changed the rules last minute to exclude death. That's a crazy take if I've ever heard one.

It's actually a crazy take and I wouldn't blame the bettor in any way. Why did the bookmakers decide to feature those type of options in the first place? They thought it wasn't going to happen before April 1st right? That the chances are very slim, but here we are. How did we even get here? People don't feel human sympathy anymore, just throwing the nuggets on whatever they can imagine.

[viljy]

This is not just a "position", it is a lifelong "spiritual rank" - if you call it in religious terminology. Common sense says that death is the only reason why this position can be left in the first place! Here I see just outright fraud of the so-called next "prediction market". In one of the recent threads about these "neo-betting" platforms, I already wrote about what, in my opinion, caused their appearance. These platforms were deliberately created specifically for the purpose of deceiving customers by using insider information or by manipulating easily controlled events (the duration of the handshake, indiscriminately speaking - "the exact time when the character sneezes," etc.)

[Patikno]

A user bet that Iran's supreme leader would be out of office by April 1st and the platform changed the rules last minute to exclude death. That's a crazy take if I've ever heard one.

Wow, is it that easy for them to manipulate the prediction market? Shouldn't they have written the betting rules from the start? So, why do they seem so panicked about changing the rules in the last minute?

I think they are just braggarts, who don't want to lose money. So, they do it as they please. They should have written detailed rules for each prediction, and they should have considered all possible outcomes, so cases like this don't happen.

By the way, I read a report that, Kalshi will reimburse all costs incurred in the betting market. Hopefully, this is fair to the injured parties.

Reference : Yellow.com - Kalshi Refuses to Let Traders Profit from Khamenei's Death - Then Returns Everyone in the Market $36 Million ( Use Indonesian to English translation, to read it )