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House Oversight chair Comer floats banning government officials from prediction market bets after insider-trading probe
Summary
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is calling for new limits on government officials' use of prediction markets, up to an outright ban, The Block and Decrypt reported Friday.
The committee released a staff memorandum from an investigation it opened in May into insider trading risks among government officials, military personnel and security-clearance holders, drawing on about 1,700 pages of documents and five bipartisan staff briefings from prediction market companies, according to both outlets.
The memo recommends Congress consider restrictions on federal personnel ranging from a full ban on prediction market trading to narrower limits on government-related contracts, applied across all branches of government.
Decrypt reports the memo credited platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi with first detecting and flagging most reported insider-trading incidents, and noted existing insider-trading law under the Commodity Exchange Act, as amended by the STOCK Act, already applies to these markets.
Key facts
- "Congress must consider additional reforms to prevent public corruption and restore the American people's trust in government," Comer said on Friday.
- The committee said Congress should also encourage prediction market companies and federal agencies to share the information needed to enforce any restrictions.
- In April, the Senate voted to pass a resolution banning its members from trading on prediction markets.
- A U.S. soldier was charged in April over alleged Polymarket trades tied to the military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and in August the CFTC fined a former White House teleprompter operator for betting on presidential speeches.
- The memo singled out Polymarket's 'PolyGraph' surveillance software, built with Chainalysis, and Kalshi's strengthened detection protocols.