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Luana Lopes Lara and Tarek Mansour

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Cite

Semuels, A. (2026, September 30). Luana Lopes Lara and Tarek Mansour. TIME. https://time.com/collection/time100-next/2026/luana-lopes-lara-and-tarek-mansour/

Dated when The Aporia collected the article, usually within hours of publication. Check the original for its exact date and byline.

TIME · collected 2026-09-30 · by Alana Semuels

Quick Summary

Luana Lopes Lara from Brazil and Tarek Mansour, raised in Lebanon, met at MIT and later founded Kalshi, a prediction market platform that allows users to bet on events like election outcomes or commodity prices. The company has faced legal challenges from states claiming it operates as an illegal gambling site but asserts its legality and has attracted significant investment; it is now reportedly valued at $40 billion, up from estimates in May of this year.
Written by AI on 2026-10-02, from this article's own text only (the story summary below draws on all the coverage).

AI analysis

Story summary

Luana Lopes Lara from Brazil and Tarek Mansour, raised in Lebanon, met at MIT where they collaborated to found Kalshi, a prediction market platform that allows users to bet on various outcomes like elections and commodity prices. Initially discussed only in academic circles, Kalshi has become one of the world's most popular such platforms since its founding. Despite facing legal challenges from states like New York and Washington over gambling regulations, Kalshi maintains it operates lawfully. The company is valued at nearly $40 billion, making it a highly sought-after investment opportunity among major investors.

Written for “Brazilian Political Couple” on 2026-11-02, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Story

📰 Brazilian Political Couple
Politics · 1 article(s) covering the same event.

Compared with similar articles

Nothing to compare against. No article is close enough to this one for the pipeline to have linked or judged the pair.
How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
6
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
33%
2 of 6 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Publisher signals
59/100
TIME's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
1
Politics
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-09-30 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

TIME · 785 article(s) · 2 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 2 correction(s)
2026-10-19
Santevia Refillable Metal Shower Filter
2026-09-17
Kerry James Marshall

Who wrote this

Alana Semuels
7 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction
🔮 The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will not take action against licensed pharmacists who dispense certain unapproved peptides to consumers, according to a new policy published Oct. 28 in the Federal Register.
2026-10-28 · assertive framing · The Peptide Rush Has Begun
🔮 The compounded drug represented significant cost savings—$250 a month versus the $399 a month she would have paid through LillyDirect, the direct-to-consumer site that people often use when their insurance doesn’t cover the drug.
2026-10-07 · assertive framing · Compounding Pharmacies for Weight-Loss Drugs Are Booming. Should You Trust Them?
🔮 “This rise in severe presentations might be a bit of a warning signal of a wider increase in harms across the general population,” says Ryan Forrest, a public-health doctoral student at the University of Toronto and one of the authors of the study.
2026-10-05 · assertive framing · Gambling Is Sending More People to the ER
🔮 As they got to know each other through the school’s international community—she’s from Brazil, he was raised in Lebanon—they eventually collaborated to found a company that would help popularize prediction markets, which had long been discussed in academic circles but never successfully marketed to the public.
2026-09-30 · mixed framing · Luana Lopes Lara and Tarek Mansour
🔮 The problem of insured Americans with medical debt could grow in the coming years as health insurance becomes less affordable.
2026-09-17 · mixed framing · Having Health Insurance Doesn’t Prevent Medical Debt
🔮 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.
2026-09-15 · assertive framing · Luana Lopes Lara Is on the Frontlines of Evolving Prediction Markets
🔮 Dr. Elaine Batchlor, CEO of MLK Community Hospital in Los Angeles, already knows what will happen if her hospital closes.
2026-09-08 · assertive framing · More Americans Are Losing Health Insurance—And Everyone Will Pay
Also by Alana Semuels
The Peptide Rush Has Begun
2026-10-28 · TIME
Compounding Pharmacies for Weight-Loss Drugs Are Booming. Should You Trust Them?
2026-10-07 · TIME
Gambling Is Sending More People to the ER
2026-10-05 · TIME
Having Health Insurance Doesn’t Prevent Medical Debt
2026-09-17 · TIME
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
All 7 articles by Alana Semuels →

Topics

Brazil GOP Kalshi Lebanon MIT

Subjects

Kalshi PERSON · 3× Brazil GPE · 1× GOP ORG · 1× Lebanon GPE · 1× Lopes Lara PERSON · 1× Luana Lopes Lara PERSON · 1× MIT ORG · 1× Mansour PERSON · 1× New York GPE · 1× Tarek Mansour PERSON · 1×

Narrative

As they got to know each other through the school’s international community—she’s from Brazil, he was raised in Lebanon—they eventually collaborated to found a company that would help popularize prediction markets, which had long been discussed in academic circles but never successfully marketed to the public.
framing: mixed · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-30
🔮 As they got to know each other through the school’s international community—she’s from Brazil, he was raised in Lebanon—they eventually collaborated to found a company that would help popularize prediction markets, which had long been discussed in academic circles but never successfully marketed to the public.
2026-09-30 · TIME
Luana Lopes Lara and Tarek Mansour · mixed framing

Claims (6 extracted, 2 hedged)

Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara met in a class at MIT: she always sat up front and he wanted to learn from her, she says. asserted
she → meet → her
As they got to know each other through the school’s international community—she’s from Brazil, he was raised in Lebanon—they eventually collaborated to found a company that would help popularize prediction markets, which had long been discussed in academic circles but never successfully marketed to the public. asserted
which → get → public
It allows people to wager on things like the future GOP presidential nominee and the price of diesel, and has been extremely accurate at predicting the outcome of events like elections. asserted
people → allow → elections
Lopes Lara and Mansour say Kalshi democratizes a realm formerly available only to Wall Street traders, who could bet on the price of oil or pork through futures trading. uncertain
who → say → trading
Kalshi has been challenged in court by states like New York and Washington, which accuse it of being an illegal gambling operation—but the company maintains that its business is lawful, and, notably, investors are huge fans. asserted
investors → challenge → it
As the company tries to raise more funding, it is now reportedly valued at $40 billion, nearly double what funders estimated it was worth in May. uncertain
it → try → May
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