A staffer on a tight statewide campaign in the South says they and colleagues placed bets after learning of an unreleased outside poll that showed their candidate far ahead. The staffer, who spoke to NPR anonymously to avoid jeopardizing their job, said the tip conflicted with the campaign’s internal numbers but was enough to outpace prices on prediction markets where the candidate had been trading at a double-digit deficit. When the poll was published, the market price jumped and the staffer sold for a profit.
NPR reviewed market records and confirmed the trades. This episode is one of the first publicly reported examples of campaign insiders using nonpublic information to wager on their own races on prediction platforms, which now handle billions of dollars in bets across sports, culture and politics.
The staffer described a straightforward approach: act on a leak about a yet-to-be-released poll, compare the campaign’s internal likelihood of victory to the market’s implied probability, buy low-cost event contracts if the market underestimates the candidate, and sell after the poll becomes public and prices rise. On many platforms, a contract trading at $0.20 is commonly interpreted as a 20% chance of the event. The staffer said their biggest single return was in the thousands of dollars and that campaign betting was a common practice on that and other campaigns they later joined.
Legal experts say those trades may cross a line. Jeff Le Riche, a former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) trial lawyer who spent two decades at the agency prosecuting insider trading and market manipulation, told NPR such activity “could potentially be a violation” and might warrant a CFTC inquiry. Under the Commodity Exchange Act, trading on material nonpublic information can be unlawful if the trader had a duty to keep that information confidential and knowingly used it to trade. Le Riche said employment contracts and the user agreements of the betting platforms would be key documents in any probe.
Because prediction markets are relatively new and have grown quickly, some observers worry early lax enforcement created an “illusion of safety” for insiders. Another anonymous staffer who worked on statewide races on the East Coast recalled colleagues making bets based on internal polling when markets were thin and volatile, sometimes viewing a quick profit as an easy opportunity. That person said they personally avoided the markets, but noted that in the early 2020s the platforms were less liquid and easier to beat.
Former CFTC commissioner Kristin Johnson told NPR the agency lacks extensive experience policing election-related positions and has not tested its authority in many cases involving political insider trading. She also questioned whether the commission has sufficient resources to pursue numerous investigations and urged Congress to offer clearer rules about political event contracts.
Policymakers have begun to act. The White House warned staff against using prediction markets, and the Senate unanimously adopted a rule barring senators and their staff from trading on these platforms. Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) endorsed further restrictions for government officials, though the Senate change does not extend to campaign staffers. Representative Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) went further within his own operation, banning prediction-market trading for his House office and campaign and formalizing that prohibition in a staff handbook.
The market operators have also moved to police insider activity. The CFTC allowed certain PredictIt contracts in 2014, creating a limited legal space for election betting in the U.S. Later, for-profit firms such as Kalshi began offering heavily marketed election contracts and report large volumes of political betting. Polymarket operates largely offshore and outside U.S. regulation.
Kalshi says it has suspended or fined users, including political candidates and others, after internal investigations found they had bet on races in which they were directly involved. In recent months Kalshi took action against a creator editor and a California gubernatorial candidate who publicly acknowledged placing bets on their own contests, and in another instance suspended and fined three users for so-called political insider trading.
In February the CFTC issued guidance asserting its authority over prediction markets and advised platforms to list only contracts that are “not readily susceptible to manipulation.” But lawmakers and regulators are still debating how to fit existing securities and ethics rules to rapidly evolving prediction platforms.
NPR has flagged other high-profile bets that raised questions about market integrity. In April, NPR’s analysis of Polymarket activity found a trader who made roughly $300,000 by correctly wagering on last-minute presidential pardons. In March, NPR reported a Polymarket trade of about $553,000 tied to developments involving Iran and its supreme leader shortly before an Israeli strike killed him.
The original staffer told NPR they sold after the poll’s publication and then reinvested some winnings when their internal data continued to indicate a strong chance of victory. With law enforcement guidance still developing, and platforms varying in how they detect and punish insider activity, experts say campaign-related betting remains a gray area: an easy route to quick gains for some insiders, and a growing concern for regulators, lawmakers and the public about fairness and market integrity.