Cheeky Pint
Cheeky Pint

Creating prediction markets (and suing the CFTC) with Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara

March 17, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

🎙️ The Voices & The Context

  • The Format: Casual interview-style podcast chat with two hosts (Matt and John) grilling the guests on startup war stories, business mechanics, and big-picture policy.
  • The Key Players:
    • Guests: Tarek Mansur and Luana Lara, co-founders of Kalshi (transcribed as Calci/Calci), MIT math/CS grads who built the first CFTC-approved onshore US prediction market, trading $10B+ monthly volume post-2024 election boom.
    • Hosts: Sharp, probing duo with trader vibes (John's a "secret trader at heart"); great chemistry pushing on risks, regs, and hypotheticals.
  • The Vibe: Optimistic and educational with intense startup grit—think underdog triumph over regulators, laced with fun user anecdotes and light-hearted founder banter (optimist Luana vs. paranoid Tarek).

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: Tarek Mansour & Luana Lara**
  • 2 (01:27) **Founding Kalshi & Regulatory-First Approach**
  • 3 (04:50) **CFTC Contract Approval Process**
  • 4 (06:11) **Election Lawsuit Against CFTC**
  • 5 (11:44) **Suing Regulators: Advice & Precedents**
  • 6 (14:30) **Timing: Why Now for Prediction Markets?**
  • 7 (17:01) **Growth & Marketplace Dynamics**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara are the co-founders of Kalshi, the first federally regulated prediction market in the US. They sit down with John and Matt Huang to discuss growing their revenue 11x in six months, why they sued their own regulator to list election markets, and how they are building the "New York Stock Exchange of events." They cover why prediction markets are an antidote to social media polarization, the mechanics of market making for culture, and their vision for trading everything from GPU shipments to the Oscars and the weather.


Timestamps

(00:01:39) Suing the government

(00:14:42) Why now?

(00:17:12) Kalshi by numbers

(00:20:58) Solving market making

(00:31:33) Agentic trading

(00:33:43) Sharps

(00:38:45) Stripe Connect

(00:39:33) Evolving Kalshi

(00:44:50) Who loses from Kalshi?

(00:47:35) Insider trading

(00:53:28) The ethics of sports contracts

(00:58:08) New derivatives

(01:04:27) Politics

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