OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
1:55 PM – Thursday, March 5, 2026
The popular prediction-market app Kalshi is refusing to pay approximately $54 million to its users who correctly predicted the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Kalshi, where users gamble on real-world events, offered favorable odds on the 86-year-old being “out as Supreme Leader” after the Trump administration launched a joint attack on Tehran with Israel early on Saturday morning.
“BREAKING: The odds Ali Khamenei is out as Supreme Leader have surged to 68%,” the company announced on Saturday morning, before any confirmations about Khamenei’s state were made public.
It continued, however, “Reminder: Kalshi does not offer markets that settle on death. If Ali Khamenei dies, the market will resolve based on the last traded price prior to confirmed reporting of death.”
The app’s guidelines prohibit betting markets that are “directly tied to death.”
It followed up a few hours later on Saturday to clarify its previously “ambiguous” rules of the game.
“A prior version of this clarification was grammatically ambiguous. As a customer service measure, Kalshi will reimburse lost value due to trades made between these clarifications,” the company stated. “MARKET RULES CLARIFICATION: If Ali Khamenei dies, the market will resolve upon the confirmed reporting of the death, based on the last traded price prior to death. If that price is unclear, the Outcome Review Committee will determine a fair market value.”
Users quickly vowed to delete their accounts and never bet on the platform again, accusing Kalshi of changing their policy at the last minute to withhold fair winnings, and calling for a class-action lawsuit. Some argued that death is one of the only ways that rulers like Khamenei get “out as Supreme Leader.”
Kalshi told the New York Post that it has paid $2.2 million to cover fees and net losses related to the market and affirmed its policy that “design[s] the rules to prevent people from profiting from death.”
“Our rules were clear from the beginning, we never changed them, and we settled based on the rules,” a Kalshi spokesperson said in a statement.
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour wrote in a lengthy statement on social media, “The market rules were not changed. The death carveout and settlement based on last-traded-price were part of the published market rules from the outset.”
“Some traders who held YES feel like they should have won (as in the market should have settled to YES). But the rules clearly stated that the market would not settle to YES in the event of death,” he continued.
The CEO noted, “Death carveouts are important; as a federally regulated prediction market, we are required and feel it is important not to enable direct profiting from war, assassination, terrorism, or other violent outcomes.”
He revealed that traders did not lose money or end “net-negative” after reimbursements, and that Kalshi did not profit on the market.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has considered drawing up legislation to ban betting on government actions, citing concerns that betting on death could incentivize acts of violence and assassinations.
“This is American commercial immorality on steroids,” Murphy told The Washington Post.
“People shouldn’t be rooting for people to die because they placed a bet,” he added.
President Donald Trump confirmed Khamenei’s death on Saturday afternoon. Several other members of the Islamic regime were reportedly killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes.
Stay informed! Receive breaking news alerts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts
What do YOU think? Click here to jump to the comments!
Sponsored Content Below
