Kalshi Drops Affiliate Badges Following X/Twitter Policy Change on Gambling

Prediction market Kalshi took down all affiliate badges on X (formerly Twitter) earlier this week after the platform updated its paid partnerships policy to bar promotional deals with accounts that share gambling and sports betting content.

Kalshi Removes Affiliate Badges

The company said it decided to remove the Kalshi badges despite them being quite popular and serving as a fun way to engage the community. However, they became too difficult to monitor, and some users mistakenly viewed badged accounts as officially endorsed by Kalshi, the company said. It also added that it plans to explore other ways to keep things engaging for its traders.

Affiliate badge programs have been widely used by platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket to promote their brands. However, the strategy has drawn scrutiny for both companies after some affiliates shared fake news or other problematic content, including racist posts. Kalshi previously compared the affiliate badges to “bumper stickers or team logos.”

Kalshi’s Troubles Continue

The latest ruling by Twitter/X is yet another blow to Kalshi and prediction markets as a whole, as platforms like it have been facing increased scrutiny from many sides, including state regulators, other private businesses, and the broader public. It’s interesting to note that even Twitter’s head of product, Nikita Bier, made a post with a meme showing a utopian society and wrote the caption, “The world without prediction market spam on X.”

But on a more serious note, Kalshi has been embroiled in trouble with many state regulators in recent months. One of these includes an official order for Kalshi to stop offering contracts in Nevada. This latest development is a part of an ongoing lawsuit between the predictions markets platform and the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which claims the former is effectively accepting sports bets without a proper license.

This neatly ties into the issue that many other bodies that are suing prediction markets platforms argue – do contracts tied to sporting events amount to sports betting or not? Sports betting is regulated on a state-by-state basis, and opponents argue these contracts fall under those laws. Meanwhile, Kalshi, Polymarket, and other prediction market proponents contend that the companies have found a legal pathway that allows them to offer their products nationwide.

However, prediction markets themselves have also pushed back against this notion. For example, recently, Kalshi opened a lawsuit against Utah, claiming that state officials are illegitimately wanting to take steps to prevent access to the platform. Utah is one of only two states (the other one being Hawaii) that permit no form of legal gambling whatsoever, and they claim Kalshi’s offerings are a form of it.