Luana Lopes Lara, 29, is the chief operating officer of Kalshi, a New York-based prediction market platform. In September 2024, Kalshi won a legal battle against its regulator, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), allowing it to list political event contracts, which contributed to the company's valuation growing to $22 billion by December 2025. Forbes named Lopes Lara the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire in December 2025. The article highlights her background as a former ballet dancer and MIT graduate, emphasizing her optimistic outlook and quick decision-making skills essential for running Kalshi.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-16,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Luana Lopes Lara is inherently an optimist—perhaps because Brazilians, she says, have a more positive outlook than people from other countries.
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she → say → countries
That trait has served her well as chief operating officer of Kalshi, the New York-based prediction market that has boomed in recent years as people take up placing money on everything from what words the President will use in his speeches to the price of a Costco hot dog.
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President → serve → dog
“I probably wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t had this Brazilian culture and background,” says Lopes Lara, 30.
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Lara → have → culture
“I’m very optimistic and positive, but it’s not a blind optimism—it’s more like I believe that in the end, things will work out.”
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things → ’m → end
She still leans on some Brazilian traditions, like always trying to get out of bed on her right foot and then taking a few hops on it, eating lentils for New Year’s, and jumping over seven waves in the ocean for good luck.
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She → lean → luck
Lopes Lara put her optimism to work when the company decided to sue Kalshi’s regulator, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, arguing that the company should be allowed to list political event contracts.
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company → put → contracts
Kalshi won the case in September 2024, which allowed the platform to feature the 2024 elections, with users favoring Donald Trump over Kamala Harris when polls were forecasting an even race.
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polls → win → race
Since then, the company’s valuation has grown to $22 billion, and in December 2025, Lopes Lara unseated 31-year-old Scale cofounder Lucy Guo to become the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire at 29, according to Forbes.
uncertain
Lara → grow → Forbes
Lopes Lara’s parents, a math teacher and an electrical engineer, pushed their two daughters to be financially independent, so they would never need to rely on partners for money.
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they → push → money
But her parents’ vision of success included going to a public university in Brazil and getting a job as a doctor, engineer, or lawyer, she says.
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she → include → doctor
She wanted more for herself: “I always wanted to do bigger things.”
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I → want → things
Lopes Lara was accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford while she was performing as a ballet dancer in Austria, having trained at the only official affiliate school of the Russian Bolshoi Theater outside of Moscow.
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she → accept → Moscow
She chose MIT, she says, because people there seemed more passionate about what they were pursuing than students did at Harvard.
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students → choose → Harvard
It was at MIT that Lopes Lara got to know her Kalshi co-founder, Tarek Mansour, when he sat next to her in the first row in an algorithms class so he could learn from her, she says.
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she → get → her
These days, Mansour handles many public-facing tasks as CEO and Lopes Lara handles internal operations.
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Lara → handle → operations
The role has forced her to unlearn some of the perfectionist tendencies she honed for so long as a ballerina, she says, where tilting your finger a centimeter in the wrong direction can ruin the aesthetics.
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tilting → force → aesthetics
“For a startup, you need the opposite,” she says.
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she → need → opposite
“You need to move very fast.”
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You → need → ?
The speed at which Kalshi is moving has caught the eye of regulators outside the federal government, resulting in court challenges in states including New York and Washington.
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Kalshi → move → York
So far, its federal regulator has remained steadfast in holding that Kalshi can legally operate.
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Kalshi → remain → ?
Lopes Lara says she believes Kalshi’s case will prevail—after all, it was a President Biden-appointed judge who first gave the company the green light to list elections, and it’s the Trump Administration that continues to support the company.
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that → say → company
“At the end of the day, it’s because we’re right on the law,” she says.
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she → ’ → law
Many state attorneys general disagree, making her position, unquestionably, what an optimist might say.
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optimist → disagree → what
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