Kalshi takes down badges and sponsored accounts on X after blowback

This piece has been updated to reflect Kalshi’s official statement on its decision to move away from paid badges and sponsored accounts on X.

It didn’t take long after Elon Musk purchased Twitter (now X) for the social media platform to become overrun with sponsored accounts posting sensationalized content designed to generate engagement and revenue.

For a while, the online casino Stake quietly stamped its branding onto viral clips of live streamers and online drama content. More recently, growing prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket began sponsoring top aggregator accounts, paying users per post in hopes of driving X users back to the markets as customers.

At its worst, this trend led to Kalshi and Polymarket partnering with fake sports insiders who were actively spreading misinformation.

Something recently changed on X, as multiple users flagged the sudden removal of all Kalshi “badges” from users’ accounts on Monday evening.

It turns out that Kalshi opted to remove badges and sponsorships from the platform altogether. A spokesperson told Front Office Sports that, “People loved the badges and it was a fun way to engage the community, but it became too difficult to police, and people often confused badged accounts with Kalshi-endorsed messages.”

While Kalshi is claiming they pulled the plug on the sponsorships, Michael Mockler reported getting the following recruitment DM from the @Kalshi account hours before the sudden change.

Strangely, promotion of social casinos and gambling content was always banned under X’s policy. Lax enforcement of that policy was what appeared to create a problem on the platform. The prediction markets may argue they do not fall under the categories laid out under X’s updated paid partnerships policy, including sports betting and gambling-related content. Kalshi and Polymarket are seeking to avoid regulation as sports betting operators.

Regardless of how X would have adjudicated their existing policy on gambling content, X’s Head of Product, was made his opinion known on prediction market posts on X last week.

So far, Polymarket has not followed suit. Users with Polymarket badges appear to have been unaffected so far as X attempts to retroactively enforce its policies.

X and Polymarket entered into a partnership last year, making them X’s “Official Prediction Market Partner.”