The woman who helped build bridges between legal sportsbooks and the U.S. sports establishment will take a crack at doing the same for N.Y.-based Kalshi, a federally regulated futures exchange that has caused a firestorm of late by bringing what it calls event-based prediction markets to sports.
Sara Slane, who served as SVP/Public Affairs at the American Gaming Association for five years before launching a sports betting consultancy in 2019, has joined Kalshi as Head of Corporate Development, a role that will include public affairs, government relations and liaison work with the sports leagues. She will report to co-founder & CEO Tarek Mansour.
Kalshi functions similarly to a sportsbook, allowing account holders to predict the winner of a game and purchase futures contracts that back that prediction at prices that fluctuate similarly to odds, using an exchange regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Though online sports betting remains illegal in 28 states that are home to about 40% of US over-21 adults, Kalshi operates in all 50 states.
That approach, and the increased profile that came when Kalshi offered its Super Bowl and March Madness derivatives through high-profile online broker Robinhood, has brought cease-and-desist letters from gambling regulators in at least four states: Nevada New Jersey, Illinois and Ohio. Kalshi has defied those orders.
“It’s going to be a wild ride,” said Slane, an SBJ 40 Under 40 selection in 2019. “It is the next chapter and the next iteration (of sports betting) and I think it’s a huge opportunity. There’s a lot that has to play out.”
Kalshi reported trade volume of $412 million on this year’s men’s NCAA tournament, a number that would be akin to about $206 million in betting handle, since it includes both sides of a trade.
Kalshi first made waves with its online prediction market that offered contracts on the 2024 presidential election. It since has expanded to a broad menu of sports offerings, as well as a range of markets across politics and pop culture.
The longer term fate of contracts based on sports likely will be determined by the end of May, when the CFTC completes a review of the practice. The CFTC opposed Kalshi’s election derivatives before losing in court, but that was under the Biden administration. In January, Kalshi added Donald Trump Jr. as a strategic adviser.
“A lot of it right now is just educating everybody, because there’s just so much misinformation out there,” Slane said. “It’s hard to crack through some of that, but that’s what they’re hoping I can do.”
As the AGA’s public affairs lead when the Supreme Court struck down sports betting prohibitions in 2018, Slane sold pro sports leagues and sportsbooks on the idea that they shared a common upside from a legal, regulated market.
“At the AGA, her constituents were the sports betting operators and that’s who she was looking after,” said NHL President of Business Keith Wachtel, who interacted with Slane at the AGA and as a client of her consultancy. “However, she very quickly led the charge to find the right framework under which the leagues and those sports betting operators could both operate. She was the right person for it because she understood what the business was going to look like and the importance of those relationships.
“Her ability to navigate the regulatory landscape as well as the interest of her company and the various constituents is what makes uher such a valueable asset and one which I applaud Kalshi for adding.”
