Kalshi has enlisted Sara Slane as head of corporate development, as the company prepares to fight for the right to offer sports prediction markets in the United States.
Slane is best known for her time as senior vice president of public affairs at the American Gaming Association (AGA) between 2014 and 2019, during which time the AGA lobbied for the legalisation of sports betting and the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA).
She then founded her own consultancy firm, Slane Advisory, where she was involved in some of the first market access deals between sports teams and betting operators in regulated betting states.
Slane has also provided advisory services to numerous US sports leagues and serves as a member of the board of directors at Delaware North and Playmaker Capital, and as a board observer at GeoComply.
She joins Kalshi as the company faces efforts by states with regulated sports betting markets to prevent the company from offering its event-based sports contracts to players in Illinois, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, and most recently, Maryland.
The Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission told Kalshi and other trading platforms in a letter dated April 7 that they must immediately withdraw any contract or product that provides an investment opportunity based on the outcome of any sporting league or sporting event.
In a LinkedIn post announcing her new role, Slane said: “[Kalshi] are a regulatory-focused and compliant-first team: before Kalshi launched a single market, they spent over three years upfront engaging with the CFTC to build the first federally regulated prediction market in the US, all while taking the bitter pill of watching their competitors gain traction by skirting the law or operating offshore. Kalshi isn’t worried about the short-term — they want to build something enduring.
“In large part due to their obsession with product experience, I have never seen a company in a stage of explosive growth like Kalshi,” added Slane. “Within a few months of launching sports, they have already managed to build a frontier product experience, with better pricing, robust risk management, and captivating live charts.
“The trading volume, web traffic, attention in the media, and the long list of companies ready to integrate as brokers with Kalshi is staggering,” she concluded. “I’m joining as Head of Corporate Development to help handle some of that integration demand.
“There’s palpable industry excitement about the benefits prediction markets can provide, and I’m thrilled to be working towards a future where all of the operators have prediction markets as part of their product.”