MrBeast has fired video editor Artem Kaptur for placing bets at Kalshi on markets related to the YouTuber. The prediction market platform also suspended Kaptur and fined him over $20,000 after an investigation revealed he was placing bets using insider knowledge.
A spokesperson for Beast Industries, founded by the YouTuber, said the company has “no tolerance for this behavior.”
Kalshi has regular markets on what MrBeast will say in his videos. With access to content before it goes live, Kaptur was able to wager on markets from a privileged position.
In a blog post announcing the sanctions against him, Kalshi said he had traded about $4,000 on YouTube streaming markets. He has been banned from using the site for two years, and Kalshi also referred the case to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Kaptur posted on X that he accepted responsibility for his wrongdoing, but also complained about the public destruction of his reputation.
He wrote, “I am not saying I did not deserve consequences. I am saying that watching your entire career collapse, your reputation destroyed publicly, and your name attached to the word ‘illegal’ in headlines across the internet for something that legal experts themselves are still debating is a lot to process.”
He has since deleted his X account.
MrBeast’s YouTube channel is one of the most popular on the app, with almost 500 million subscribers. He has also launched the show Beast Games, which is on Amazon Prime.
In the past, the popular streamer has spoken about his ambition to own a League of Legends team, aiming to build a roster capable of winning Worlds.
Company Warned Employees About Prediction Markets
Beast Industries CEO Jeff Housenbold said that he banned employees and contestants for Beast Games from trading on prediction markets several months ago.
Speaking on CNBC, Housenbold also said prediction markets are “ripe for abuse” in entertainment contexts.
Kalshi and other platforms are facing a string of legal challenges across the US and around the world. Regulators have largely complained that their sports markets are unlicensed gambling, while several countries have taken exception to political markets, which are often not legal to bet on.
Poirot Detected The Case
Kalshi did not say when Kaptur was trading on markets, but launched an investigation after several users contacted the company, alerting them to the wagers.
His Kalshi account name was Kaptur, and the platform openly displays trading history for everyone to see.
The platform has an internal surveillance system named Poirot, after the Belgian detective, to detect instances of suspicious activity. It said this system flagged Kaptur’s “near-perfect trading success on markets with low odds, which were statistically anomalous.”
The company’s rules state, “A Trader who is an employee or affiliate of a Source Agency for any Contract is prohibited from attempting to enter into any trade or entering into any trade on the market in such Contracts.”
In a post on X, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said the company is aggressively fighting against insider trading. In the past year, Mansour said there have been over 200 investigations, with over a dozen becoming active cases and several turned over to law enforcement.
It is unclear as yet whether Kaptur will also face criminal prosecution.