Submitted by Office of U.S. Senator Todd Young
Young
Last week, U.S. Senators Todd Young (R-Ind.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), John Curtis (R-Utah), and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) introduced the bipartisan Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026.
The bill prohibits federally elected officials and government employees from using insider information to bet on a prediction market contract.
As noted in multiple news reports around the Iran war strikes, elected and government officials at all levels are privy to confidential information that could appear on a prediction market. This legislation would ban them from using non-material public information of any kind on any event contract.
“Public service should never be a pathway to personal profit based on insider information,” Sen. Young said. “Recent activity in prediction markets has raised real concerns that individuals with access to sensitive, nonpublic information could exploit that advantage for financial gain. Our bill will prohibit elected officials, staff, and executive branch employees from trading prediction market event contracts based on information acquired as part of their official duties. This is a sensible step to protect taxpayers and promote integrity in government.”
Details of the bill
- Covered individuals: President, Vice President, Members of Congress, employees of the House of Representatives and Senate, political appointees (including the President’s cabinet), employees of an Executive agency or independent regulatory agency.
- Insider information: Any information that a reasonable investor would consider important in making a decision related to a prediction market contract and is not publicly available.
- Covered transactions: The purchase, sale, or exchange of any prediction market contract that is offered on a U.S. or foreign domiciled platform.
- Penalties: Any covered individual who violates the prohibition shall be fined the greater of either $500 or the amount equal to double the profit made in the transaction.
- Enforcing body: No later than 180 days after date of enactment the Office of Government Ethics, Select Committee on Ethics, and Committee on Ethics of the House of Representatives will: impose and collect penalties, establish procedures and standards, issue rules and guidelines in consultation with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – and publish such information on a website.
- Reporting requirements: No later than 30 days after a covered transaction over $250, the covered individual must submit a report to the supervising ethics office and include the number of contracts purchased, price of contract, date and time of transaction, name of contract, position taken on contract, name of trading platform used, profit or loss made on transaction. If the contract is not settled within 30 days of purchasing the contract an additional report shall be submitted after the contract closes or covered persons exits the position.
Government officials should not do inside trading, so wrong.