Karsi CEO Tarek Mansour said in a podcast interview that an employee posted a meme to social media influencers about the FBI raid on the home of the CEO of arch-rival Polymarket. He admitted that he asked him to advertise it.
Both of these companies offer competing event betting markets, a new kind of gambling industry where people bet on the outcome of events ranging from elections to popular culture.
Mr. Mansour said the FBI raided the home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan last month, but that Mr. Kalsi had been trying to convince influencers to post memes about his rivals. It turned out that he was trying to take advantage of the company's misfortune.
“Some of our team got pretty heated. They didn't pay anyone. They asked some of our long-time affiliates to post some of the memes. I just asked,'' Mansour told Nicole Wischoff on this week's episode of her show FirstMoney In.
Pirate Wires, a media outlet founded by Mike Solana, has been influencing Calci employees to post content suggesting that Polymarket and its CEO Shane Coplan are engaged in illegal activity. It was reported that. However, the Pirates Wires article also acknowledges that there is a clear conflict of interest with this report. Solana is the Chief Marketing Officer of Founders Fund, one of Polymarket's major investors, and Polymarket is an advertiser for Pirates Wires.
The portion of the podcast that discussed Kalsi's response to the raid and his conflict with Polymarket was deleted shortly after it was first aired. But TechCrunch obtained the deleted portion and spoke to him.
In his podcast, Mansour accused Polymarket of using similar social media tactics against Kalsi. “Both companies are doing this,” he said, adding that his team believes Polymarket is behind the social media post that “we were also investigated by the FBI.” That didn’t happen,” he said. “We have not been evaluated by the FBI.”
TechCrunch could not confirm these allegations. Neither Polymarket nor Calci responded to requests for comment.
However, the CEO said on the podcast that his company's members have allowed the social media war to go “too far,” adding: “I don't see any point in retaliating.”
Mr. Kalsi did not fire any of the employees involved, but Mr. Mansour said the employees “understand that it was a mistake and should never do something like this again.”
Polymarket claimed that the reason for the raid was related to political motives surrounding betting on the US presidential election, even though both markets were betting on the outcome. According to Bloomberg, the Department of Justice is investigating Polymarket for allegedly allowing restricted trading to US users. Following a settlement with the Commodity Exchange Commission in 2022, Polymarket will be prohibited from allowing U.S. traders to bet on its platform, Bloomberg also reported.
Unlike Polymarket, Karsi is legally allowed to accept transactions from US residents starting in 2021. In September, the company also won a lawsuit allowing it to accept bets on election results.
Kalshi, which has backers including Sequoia and Y Combinator, currently has a funding round of more than $50 million, TechCrunch reported last month.