North Carolina Republican candidate Laurie Buckhout fined $2,500 and barred for three years over Kalshi bets, according to report

A North Carolina Republican congressional candidate, Col. Laurie Buckhout, was ordered Monday to pay a $2,500 fine and receive a three-year ban connected to wagers placed through Kalshi tied to campaign events, according to a report by the New York Post.

The report says the discipline was imposed after Buckhout placed a bet on Kalshi involving her campaign and that regulators or an oversight body concluded her trading raised concerns about improper influence tied to nonpublic campaign information.

According to the New York Post, Buckhout’s case involved language describing the wagers as “insider trades,” and the reporting characterizes the incident as occurring in the context of a competitive, politically charged district where campaign operations and timing can be closely watched by donors and political consultants.

Buckhout, identified in the report as a North Carolina Republican hopeful, is running in a swing-seat environment where campaign strategies, fundraising milestones, endorsements, and public messaging can affect voter perception. The report links the Kalshi activity to those dynamics by describing the bet as reflecting her campaign plans.

The New York Post report also quotes or paraphrases an account from Buckhout’s side that the decision should not be read as what the regulator or enforcement action contended. However, the reporting attributes the penalty and trading prohibition to the enforcement action itself rather than to a voluntary agreement.

The practical effect of the order, as described in the report, is twofold: it creates an immediate financial consequence for the candidate through the $2,500 fine, and it restricts her ability to place certain trading wagers for a set period, potentially limiting how she can use prediction markets in the remaining stretch of the electoral cycle.

Because the New York Post report does not provide the underlying order text in the summary and does not include identifying details about the enforcing authority’s statute or formal case number, the exact legal basis for the penalty and the scope of the ban cannot be confirmed from the information available in the provided item.

Buckhout’s next steps, as a matter of process implied by the existence of an enforcement order, would typically include complying with the trading prohibition and addressing any challenge or clarification through whatever review mechanisms the decision provides. The New York Post account indicates the action was taken Monday, with the fine and ban announced that day.