Source: PortaldoBitcoin Original Title: Should Politicians Be Allowed to Use Prediction Markets? Bill Seeks to Ban Them Original Link:

Legislative Context

Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and 30 other colleagues from the U.S. House of Representatives, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), are mobilizing to prevent government officials from accessing prediction markets.

On Friday morning, the lawmakers introduced a new legislation, the Public Integrity Act for Financial Prediction Markets of 2026.

The bill would prohibit lawmakers and their aides from participating in prediction markets. Under the proposal, this would include all federally elected officials, political appointees, and employees of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and other executive agencies.

Argumentation of the Proposal

The text argues that individuals with privileged access in Washington, D.C., should be barred from participating in these markets when they have “material non-public information” about the market or the ability to influence its outcomes.

The term is borrowed from securities legislation and aims to prevent individuals with insider information about a company from trading financial assets. Prediction markets and the companies that operate them, such as Kalshi and Polymarket, have so far been regulated exclusively by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Controversial Betting Case

Earlier this week, Polymarket faced criticism after a trader made over US$400,000 betting that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be removed from office before the end of the month. The criticism focused on the timing of the bet, made a few hours before U.S. special forces detained Maduro.

“The most corrupt corner of Washington, D.C. may very well be the intersection of prediction markets and the federal government — where the use of insider information and self-enrichment have ceased to be imagined risks and have become demonstrated dangers,” said Representative Torres in a statement. “We ignore this blatant corruption at our own peril.”

Other Criticisms

Torres, Pelosi, and their colleagues in the House are not the only ones criticizing what they see as unfair predictions made by insiders in Washington, D.C.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) included a clip from a recent White House press briefing in his own critique of allowing elected officials to bet in markets that could directly influence outcomes.

The video shows the last 30 seconds of a White House press briefing, with a timer indicating that the event ended just before reaching 1 hour and 5 minutes — which resulted in significant profit for those who bet that the briefing would not last 65 minutes.

“Who cares about the duration of a press briefing? What an idiot bets on that?” he wrote on social media. “But we should be concerned about the existence of markets that incentivize powerful people to change outcomes so they or acquaintances can get rich with a big bet. It’s insane to allow this.”