Kalshi hires Carter, a former staffer to former U.S. President Obama, as a policy adviser

Kalshi, a U.S. prediction market platform, announced it has hired Stephanie Cutter, a former staffer to former U.S. President Obama, to serve as a policy adviser. By leveraging her extensive political background, the company aims to deepen Kalshi’s connections with Washington and governments in all across the United States, addressing the regulatory challenges created by the current legal environment.

Cutter is a senior Democratic Party adviser, highlighting Kalshi’s political positioning

Cutter is a co-founder of the public relations firm Precision Strategies and has long provided strategy to senior figures in the Democratic Party. Her addition symbolizes Kalshi’s active effort to build cross-party political influence. Previously, President Donald Trump Jr. also became Kalshi’s strategic adviser in January 2025. Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said Cutter’s professional experience will help accurately convey corporate messaging within a complex political environment.

Kalshi is currently at the center of a legal storm. Multiple state-level agencies in the U.S. have filed lawsuits over the event contracts offered by the platform, alleging that its operating model involves illegal gambling. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), led by Chair Michael Selig, argues that prediction markets are derivatives and should fall under the CFTC’s Exclusive Jurisdiction, and it has even pursued legal action against local gambling regulatory authorities. However, how Kalshi’s event contracts are defined remains unclear.

Congress urges a ban on insider trading by politicians

In addition to legal disputes, Democratic members of the U.S. Congress have also raised concerns about the insider-trading risk that prediction markets could pose—especially for trades involving international geopolitical events. Some lawmakers have introduced related bills aimed at banning politicians from placing bets using insider information. Although Kalshi and Polymarket announced earlier this year in March that they will implement stricter compliance reviews to prevent insider trading, the relevant bills are still under consideration and have not yet been officially signed into effect.

Prediction data becomes a political barometer

The odds data produced by prediction markets has become an important reference for tracking social trends, beyond opinion polls and expert commentary. Cutter said traditional views are often constrained by the polarization of public opinion, whereas prediction markets—through the real actions of money placed—can provide more accurate analysis.

In her assessment of her career, Cutter has long worked at the intersection of media, politics, and business. In an environment of information overload, the truth is often easy to obscure. She believes prediction markets have a “cut through the fog” function, providing millions of users with more logical data to replace subjective speculation and personal bias. In the current landscape where a wide range of viewpoints are intertwined, prediction markets are seen as one of the few data sources that can reflect reality. At present, many political campaign teams have incorporated Kalshi’s odds into their election assessments and as a reference for macroeconomic trends. The data-driven narratives built by prediction markets have clearly become a barometer of political public opinion.

This article, in which Kalshi hired Stephanie Cutter, a former staffer to former U.S. President Obama, as a policy adviser, first appeared on Lian News ABMedia.