In short
- Rep. Torres proposed the Public Integrity in Monetary Prediction Markets Act to maintain federal officers off prediction markets.
- The invoice follows controversy over a Polymarket dealer successful a guess on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's removing, positioned mere hours earlier than his seize.
- Former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi is amongst 30 Home members supporting the invoice alongside Torres.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and 30 of his Home of Representatives colleagues, together with Former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), are making a push to ban authorities officers from accessing prediction markets.
The lawmakers launched new laws, the Public Integrity in Monetary Prediction Markets Act of 2026, on Friday morning.
The invoice would cease lawmakers and their workers from collaborating in prediction markets. Within the context of the invoice, that would come with all federal elected officers, political appointees, and workers of the Home of Representatives, Senate, and different government businesses.
The invoice argues that D.C. insiders needs to be blocked from collaborating in markets once they possess "materials personal data" a few market or the power to affect its end result.
The time period is borrowed from securities regulation and is used to cease individuals with insider details about an organization from buying and selling securities. Prediction markets and the businesses that supply them, like Kalshi and Polymarket, have thus far been completely regulated by the Commodities and Futures Buying and selling Fee.
Earlier this week, Polymarket confronted scrutiny after a dealer received greater than $400,000 on a guess that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro could be faraway from workplace earlier than the tip of the month. Criticism targeted on the timing of the guess, which appeared simply hours earlier than U.S. particular forces apprehended Maduro.
“Probably the most corrupt nook of Washington, D.C. could be the intersection of prediction markets and the federal authorities—the place insider buying and selling and self-dealing are now not imagined dangers however demonstrated risks,” stated Rep. Torres, in a press release. “We ignore this plain-sight corruption at our personal peril."
Torres, Pelosi, and their Home colleagues aren't the one ones crying foul over what seems to be unfair predictions positioned by individuals with insider information in D.C..
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) included a clip of a latest White Home press convention in his personal criticism of permitting elected officers entry to guess on markets that they will immediately affect.
The clip exhibits the final 30 seconds of a White Home press convention, and a timer displaying that the occasion concluded proper earlier than it had lasted 1 hour and 5 minutes—which created an enormous windfall for predictors who guess in opposition to the press convention lasting 65 minutes.
Who cares in regards to the size of a press convention. What fool is betting on that?
However we must always DEFINITELY care that there are markets that give incentives to individuals with energy to alter outcomes in order that they or individuals they know can get wealthy on a giant guess.
It's insane we permit this. https://t.co/VodjzBeyt3
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 9, 2026
"Who cares in regards to the size of a press convention? What fool is betting on that?" he wrote on X. "However we must always positively care that there are markets that give incentives to individuals with energy to alter outcomes in order that they or individuals they know can get wealthy on a giant guess. It's insane we permit this."
Loxley Fernandes, the CEO and co-founder of Dastan—which owns prediction protocol Myriad and likewise an editorially impartial Decrypt—argued that participation from insiders is extra of a characteristic than a bug.
“Academically talking, prediction markets are probably the most efficient instruments for rooting out inside data and maximizing the effectivity and velocity of data transmission,” he stated earlier this week.
Whereas he does contemplate insider buying and selling to be an issue, he does take problem with the comparability between prediction markets and conventional playing. "So far, we’ve checked out fashionable prediction markets as various casinos—and I imagine this framing is wrong," he added.
