House lawmakers have not yet moved to bar members and staff from trading on prediction markets, even as bipartisan calls grow to close what critics call an ethics gap. Unlike the Senate, which recently banned senators and staff from buying event contracts, the House still permits participation on platforms where billions are wagered weekly on sports, culture, policy and elections.
The push for a House rule change has accelerated as reports of potential insider trading tied to prediction markets have mounted. Prosecutors charged a U.S. soldier in April with using classified information to win more than $400,000 betting on the removal of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Separate reporting revealed a campaign staffer made “thousands” by wagering on their own candidate using unpublished polling data.
Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York called the current situation “indefensible,” arguing there is no justification for government officials or campaign employees to profit from bets tied to decisions they influence. Torres introduced legislation to bar campaign staff from betting on their own candidates with inside information and joined a bipartisan letter urging House leadership to change the chamber’s rules immediately.
Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa has also proposed a House rule change to prohibit members and staff from participating in prediction markets. “Congress isn’t a casino,” she said, arguing that officials should not profit from insider knowledge when trading event contracts.
Under current House ethics guidance, event-contract trades are not specifically mentioned. That means profits from prediction-market wagers are not required to be disclosed in the same way other financial gains—such as from stocks, bonds or cryptocurrency—must be reported. Blake Chisam, a former chief counsel for the House Ethics Committee, has described that omission as a “blind spot.”
Prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket are overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Commodity Exchange Act forbids insider trading. Still, some lawmakers and former CFTC regulators say emerging political and geopolitical markets raise novel risks that may require additional legal guardrails.
The White House issued a memo in April warning federal staff against using Kalshi and Polymarket. The Senate’s chamber-wide ban and that memo reflect a growing institutional response, but the House has yet to adopt a comparable prohibition despite at least 10 proposed bills addressing insider trading on prediction markets.
Speaker Mike Johnson said he is “in favor” of a ban and that the idea is being discussed, but he cautioned that building consensus will take time. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s office said he supports a ban and would urge the speaker to bring such a measure to the floor promptly.
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee has begun reviewing prediction market operations after Chairman James Comer said he requested information from exchanges and warned he could issue subpoenas if necessary. The committee’s inquiry and scattered legislative efforts have produced a patchwork of scrutiny and restrictions, even as enforcement actions and reporting of alleged political and military insider trading continue to surface.
For now, members and staff in the House retain the ability to trade on prediction markets, and the chamber’s disclosures do not explicitly capture potential profits from those trades—leaving lawmakers and ethics officials debating whether new rules or laws are needed to prevent abuses.