On Tuesday, Senator Chris Murphy and Representative Greg Casar introduced a bill to ban prediction market bets on critical government actions, war, terrorism, and assassination. The legislation, known as the Banning Event Trading on Sensitive Operations and Federal Functions (BETS OFF) Act, follows a wave of suspicious wagers placed ahead of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran and military operations in Venezuela.
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Trade QQQ with leverage“They are rife with insider trading, and they offer incredibly perverse incentives, especially inside government, for government actors to push official decision making towards their financial interests,” said Murphy.
Suspicious Prediction Market Bets Draw Democratic Scrutiny
In January, a Polymarket trader cashed in $400,000 after predicting the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. A few months later, another trader with the username “Magamyman” made $550,000 after accurately betting on the date when U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran would begin.
Murphy acknowledged that it would be difficult for Republicans to support the bill because “their leader is cashing in off these prediction markets.” Polymarket and Kalshi are the leading prediction markets in the U.S. with over $5 billion of notional contract volume over the past week, according to DeFi Rate.