A 29-year-old former ballerina has overtaken pop icon Taylor Swift and Scale AI Co-Founder Lucy Guo in becoming the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire. So, how did Luana Lopes Lara go from pointe shoes to leading one of the most disruptive forces that the US market has ever seen? BonusFinder, an online casinos comparison site, reveals all.
Luana Lopes Lara, a Brazilian computer science graduate hailing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, cemented her $1bn stature on December 4, 2025 – surpassing major pop icons and multi-industry leaders just six years after co-founding prediction platform, Kalshi.
Shaping a billionaire: Cigarette butts, Steve Jobs and 7am classes
Lopes Lara experienced first-hand the coarse and borderline-violent nature of ballet practice, as instructors at Bolshoi Theater School ensured that pupils maintained disciplined posture by holding cigarette butts against their legs.
As reported by Forbes, Lopes Lara’s peers often hit glass shards in fellow dancers’ shoes to gain an advantage. Even now, at the head of an $11bn US empire, the Brazilian native brands her time in ballet school as the “most intense” period of her life.
Those punishing lessons typically started at 1pm until 9pm – immediately following 7am to midday high-school lectures.
But Lopes Lara had always been fond of those who demonstrated a keenness for unwavering toil; the late Steve Jobs stood as a core source of inspiration. Not only did Lopes Lara aspire to achieve the same laborious output as the former Apple CEO, but she was determined to be the next version of him.
Grueling midnight studies ensued. Lopes Lara’s mother and father, successful in the education and engineering sectors respectively, watched on as their daughter hauled medals across math and science competitions.
Post-high-school, professional ballerina dancing led Lopes Lara to Austria – but just nine months later she would venture to North America, where sky-high ambitions soon became reality.
Creating Kalshi: A predictions platform inspired by guesswork
As is often the case in the business world, it is not what you know…but who.
While studying at MIT, Lopes Lara met Lebanon-born Tarek Mansour. Naturally, the pair were products of the same international university program – and their friendship extended beyond campus walls. As fate would have it, both later obtained internships at Five Rings Capital in New York’s Financial District.
During one of their nightly walks back home, the pair came to a simultaneous realization: “We saw that most trading happens when people have some view about the future, and then try to find a way to put that in the markets,” Lopes Lara told Forbes.
People wanted to invest based on a variety of domestic and global circumstances – but, up to that point, had no avenue by which they could predict whether external factors would come to pass.
In short: this product would allow users to buy and sell positions on real-world events.
Kalshi had been born, albeit intangibly.
Legal roadblocks and “insane” risk halted progress
Dreams of filling that gap in the investment market led Lopes Lara and Mansour to world-renowned startup accelerator Y Combinator in 2019. However, it quickly became clear that their aspirations carried significant legal hurdles – and law firms were not prepared to take the necessary leaps.
Realizing that she was teetering on the brink of failure, Lopes Lara recounted: “Right out of college, we were taking on an insane amount of risk. It was two years without a single product – nothing launched – and if we didn’t get regulated, the company would just go to zero.”
Then came a critical juncture.
With regulatory approval proving difficult, lawyer Jeff Bandman, an ex-Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) member, agreed to guide Lopes Lara and Mansour through their application.
In November 2020, the CFTC granted Kalshi a vital certificate to function as a designated contract market (DCM). It could now be recognized as a legal exchange.
This meant two things. First, Kalshi could now legally handle contract-based predictions. Second, the platform stood as the first notable entity to earn regulatory approval – with rival Polymarket struggling to garner a similar level of market access until September 2025.
Kalshi had been born. Tangibly.
Kalshi sues CFTC despite regulatory approval
The 2024 US Presidential Election brought regulatory pressure on Lopes Lara and Mansour; the CFTC struck down Kalshi’s contracts on the outcome of the event, citing their similarity to gambling.
In turn, and going against investor advice, Lopes Lara opted to sue the CFTC. Just two months before voters swarmed the ballots, the US District Court announced its favor for Kalshi’s case against the CFTC. It was a momentous decision in her bid to legitimize Kalshi’s markets.
Moreover, it marked the first time in over a century that citizens could legally invest in the outcome of White House election.
Where other firms may have gone against the grain and leaned into the relatively unknown predictions market, Lopes Lara confirmed that her organization would only ever operate in accordance with modern laws:
“We really wanted to do things the right way because our vision was to build the biggest financial exchange in the world. Doing it legally was something we couldn’t compromise on.”
In the end, Kalshi customers invested $500m and correctly forecast Donald Trump to secure a second term as US President.
Can billionaire-ballerina Lopes Lara continue to lead Kalshi’s growth?
According to Kalshi’s latest reports, the answer is a resounding yes.
The group now welcomes over $1bn in weekly contracts, outperforming the previous year by over 1,000%. And, perhaps fittingly given its history with the 2024 Presidential Election, Donald Trump Jr. now sits on the advisory board.
Resilient in the face of multi-state adversary as regulators make continued attempts to block Kalshi’s sports contracts – which account for an estimated 90% of the New York-based outfit’s volume – Lopes Lara has shown no signs of faltering.
Rather, the young ‘billionaire ballerina’ stands stoic against opposition. But, for a woman who faced burn marks and threats of glass as a child, perhaps cease and desists are little more than virtual, painless paper cuts.
