Someone made hundreds of thousands of dollars off a well-timed bet on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s political future.
Now, a congressman wants to block government officials from being able to do the same.
Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York on Friday introduced a bill called the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, which would bar federal elected officials, political appointees, Executive Branch employees, and congressional staff from making trades on prediction markets when they have nonpublic information related to the transaction, or might be able to obtain it via their official duties.
30 House Democrats are cosponsoring the bill, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
Last Friday, a newly created account on Polymarket, a prediction market platform, bet $30,000 that Maduro would be out of office by January 31, 2026.
The next day, after Maduro’s capture, the user netted a $436,759.61 prize.
Polymarket does not currently have significant restrictions or rules against insider trading. In fact, CEO Shayne Coplan has argued that insider trading via prediction markets can be a public good.
“What’s cool about Polymarket is that it creates this financial incentive for people to go and divulge the information to the market,” Coplan said at an Axios Business event.
Polymarket did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
By contrast, Kalshi — another major prediction market platform — has rules barring insider trading.
According to the company, a government official would have been forbidden from making the Maduro trade. That’s because the platform’s rulebook bars “decision-makers” who “have any influence” on the outcome of an event from making trades related to it. The company also has safeguards in place to prevent insider trading.
Earlier this week, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour endorsed Torres’s bill.
“Why? Because we already implement it,” Mansour wrote on LinkedIn.
This isn’t the first time that fears of insider trading have cropped up around a major Trump administration action.
In April, as President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement caused a significant swing in the stock market, some administration officials and members of Congress made well-timed stock trades.
Below is the text of Torres’s forthcoming bill, courtesy of his office:
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