Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

Unfortunately, it's not just elected officials that are problematic for prediction markets. The Secretary of War, for instance is not an elected official nor are leaders of the armed forces and there is definitely a prediction market for war. Multiply this by every powerful appointee and every career bureaucrat and see what kind of picture that paints.

It makes sense to ban government officials from betting. It's hard enough to enforce insider trading. With legal betting, it's literally impossible.

Another worrying issue with betting is just how prevalent the last election was in betting markets. In elections won by thousands or even just hundreds of votes, betting markets can skew results where betters vote for someone just purely for the bet and persuade, shill for the person they bet on.

I can imagine betters placing a bet on a candidate and then launching a defamation campaign against the other.

> A Mystery Trader Made $400,000 Betting on Maduro’s Downfall

> Prediction market trader 'Magamyman' made $553,000 on death of Iran's supreme leader

I recall a few finance papers saying (paraphrasing) "approximately all private info is reflected in stock prices". The same is obviously true of prediction markets. If government officials are banned, they'll just give a little wink to a relative or friend, and the prediction markets will reflect the private information.

On a personal note, I find these markets incredibly useful in day to day life. There's been a joke for a while that putting site:reddit.com in your google search is the only way to get (some) real information. It's becoming true that putting <search terms> AND (kalshi OR polymarket) is how to get accurate info.

Aren't there already basic laws against officials profiting from their role?

> Following multiple public reports on the growing influence of prediction markets and their potential for corruption, Merkley and Klobuchar introduced the End Prediction Market Corruption Act — a new bill to ban the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, and other public officials from trading event contracts. The bill will ensure that federal elected officials maintain their oath of office to serve the people by preventing them from trading on information that they gained through their role.

Prediction markets and crypto will continue to ride the wave while this administration is in office. But I expect prediction markets will come to be thought of as slimy gambling dens ridden with fraud no different than crypto. The cancerous "greed is good/gamble on everything" attitude prevalent today in America will come crashing down at some point. When? Who knows. The sooner the better.

But for now, make sure you get in your bets er i mean predictions on this mega important market: "Elon Musk # tweets March 3 - March 10, 2026?"[1]

[1] https://polymarket.com/event/elon-musk-of-tweets-march-3-mar...

Does this include the stock market?

How is any of this going to get passed without enforcement of anti-trust and an end to citizen united?

The prediction market trend will "work itself out".

It will become common knowledge that these platforms are exploited by insiders so people "trust" apparent flagged insider bets, so people will try to piggyback insiders, then it will be revealed that a sophisticated party with infinitely deep pockets burns massive amounts of cash to manipulate odds and these piggybackers will be burned badly, so in the end classical gambling and sports betting will resume as preferred ways for gamblers to lose money because of their disgust with the manipulation.

The answer is simple - you price in the chance that an insider could have an edge on you when making your prediction. It's all part of the game.

Related:

War Prediction Markets Are a National-Security Threat https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/03/polymarket-in...

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47291036)

If we can't ban them from trading stocks, good luck with this.

It wouldn't be a problem if the law was actually applied to prediction markets. If crime is de facto already legal, more laws seems like the least of ones worries.

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> you have the perfect recipe to undermine the public’s belief that government officials are working for the public good

The public already does not believe this. Less than 25% approve of your work.

> This legislation strengthens the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s ability to go after bad actors

And this is designed to "increase trust?"