Senators ban themselves from prediction markets after candidates bet on own races - Ars Technica

Overview

Senators ban themselves from prediction markets after candidates bet on own races

Senator decries “blatant, brazen corruption,” wants to target Trump admin next.

Details

US senators voted unanimously to ban themselves from making bets on prediction markets yesterday, about a week after Kalshi said it caught three congressional candidates betting on their own campaigns.

The resolution to prohibit senators from trading on prediction markets passed yesterday by unanimous consent. The action amends the Senate’s conflict-of-interest rules and does not require approval by the House of Representatives. The House has a pending resolution that would impose a similar rule on its own members.

“United States Senators have no business engaging in speculative activities like prediction markets while collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck, period,” said Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who introduced the resolution. “Serving in Congress should never be about finding new ways to profit; it should be about delivering results for the American people.”

Moreno’s resolution applies broadly to all bets on prediction markets, not just those related to events of which a senator has inside knowledge. The Senate also adopted an amendment submitted by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), which extends the trading ban to Senate officers and employees. Padilla said in a statement that the rule as amended “is a commonsense step to ensure that senators and their staff cannot use their positions of public trust to line their own pockets.”

Senate ethics rules are enforced by the Senate Ethics Committee, but the Senate’s enforcement process has been described as being much less effective than the House equivalent.

Democrat wants bill targeting Trump admin corruption

Padilla also said he is pushing “for legislation to rein in Trump administration officials who may be profiting off insider knowledge, including military operations.” A US Army soldier was recently arrested for insider trading after being accused of making prediction-market wagers on the timing of the military’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“Politicians betting on their own races, massive wagers placed moments before the president announced of a ceasefire in Iran, and suspected insider trading before the capture of Nicolás Maduro—these are just a few examples of the blatant, brazen corruption that we’ve seen playing out on prediction markets,” Padilla said.

Padilla added, “This resolution alone will not address the growing public outrage over the unprecedented scale of corruption under the Trump administration.” Major prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi both have Donald Trump Jr. as an advisor, and a Trump Jr.-backed venture capital firm invested in Polymarket.

Kalshi and Polymarket both said they support the Senate resolution and that they already banned such trading in their platform rules. Kalshi last week announced enforcement actions against two House candidates and one Senate candidate who bet on their campaigns.

Kalshi has an extensive rulebook that allows it to impose fines, bans, and suspensions on traders. Two of the three candidates agreed to settlements with Kalshi. Democrat Matt Klein, a House candidate in Minnesota, agreed to a five-year suspension and fine of

Klein, who has since co-authored a Minnesota state Senate bill to prohibit prediction markets, said he made the bet in October 2025 because he was curious about how prediction markets worked. “I set up an account and bet $50 of my own funds that I would win the primary,” he wrote. “I was informed in March of 2026 that this was a violation of the platform rules. In compliance with their request, I paid a penalty and agreed to be suspended from the platform.”

Kalshi also issued a five-year suspension and a penalty of $6,229.30 to independent Mark Moran, a Senate candidate in Virginia, who did not agree to a settlement.

“YES, I did bet ~$100 on myself on Kalshi because I wanted to get caught,” Moran wrote in an X post. Moran said he refused a settlement offer that would have compelled him to make a public statement, and that he made the bet to draw attention to Kalshi and his own campaign.

“For $100, I just got more attention from CNN, Fox, WSJ, etc than any media consultant ever,” he wrote. “In politics, money has always bought attention, but I can get attention for almost free.”

Moran wrote that “Kalshi is currently being sued by many states for being an illegal betting market,” and that he made the bet to “bring to light that our ‘democracy’ is up for sale and Kalshi is a platform that can be manipulated by the highest bidder/donor to move a market which will sway voters bc the media will report on it.”

The Trump administration has fought state efforts to impose stricter regulations on prediction markets. The US won a court ruling that prevents New Jersey from enforcing laws that prohibit betting on college sports and require licenses to offer other types of sports wagers.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has jurisdiction over prediction markets and recently announced lawsuits against Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois to challenge the states’ regulations. “The CFTC will continue to safeguard its exclusive regulatory authority over these markets and defend market participants against overzealous state regulators,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said at the time.

Kalshi said in March that it was “launching new technological guardrails that preemptively block politicians, athletes, and other relevant people from trading in certain politics and sports markets.” Polymarket said yesterday that it is deploying a blockchain system to monitor trading and enforce its rules.

1.          The most severe Linux threat to surface in years catches the world flat-footed
   

2.          Russia cloaks launch schedule after spaceport falls in Ukraine's sights
   

3.          A Falcon 9 rocket will hit the Moon this summer at seven times the speed of sound
   

4.          Elon Musk's 7 biggest stumbles on the stand at Open AI trial
   

5.          Meta cuts contractors who reported seeing Ray-Ban Meta users have sex
   

Ars Technica has been separating the signal from the noise for over 25 years. With our unique combination of technical savvy and wide-ranging interest in the technological arts and sciences, Ars is the trusted source in a sea of information. After all, you don’t need to know everything, only what’s important.

Key Takeaways

• Senators ban themselves from prediction markets after candidates bet on own races

• Senator decries “blatant, brazen corruption,” wants to target Trump admin next

• US senators voted unanimously to ban themselves from making bets on prediction markets yesterday, about a week after Kalshi said it caught three congressional candidates betting on their own campaigns

• The resolution to prohibit senators from trading on prediction markets passed yesterday by unanimous consent

• “United States Senators have no business engaging in speculative activities like prediction markets while collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck, period,” said Sen