https://www.moreno.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/FIL...
>No Member of the Senate may enter into, or offer to enter into, an agreement, contract, or transaction that provides for any purchase, sale, payment, or delivery that is dependent on the occurrence, nonoccurrence, or the extent of the occurrence of a specific event.
Kind of seems like Senators would now be barred from like getting home or life insurance and certain kinds of casino gambling. Or like, making an offer on a home that is rescindable upon a failed inspection?
Edit: I guess that’s not dependent on a ‘specific’ future event.
We've seen OpenAI employees get caught insider trading on prediction markets for new model releases.
Every human is privy to some sort of exclusive information. Polymarket and the likes offer predictions on just about everything that has any relevancy. Sports, Technology, eSports, Politics.
You don't have to have "major influence" to be a beneficiary of insider trading.
In any case the vast majority of government employees are on the general schedule.
AWS’s massive outage lead to a significant jump in the stock price.
No single grunt level employee has the power to affect any large company’s share price.
Until they do...
Avoiding insider trading on prediction markets seems like an intractable problem to me.
This is going to ruin interesting conversations at their holiday dinners!
what you're saying is probably on the mind of at least one Senator, but all things considered, this feels like a net-positive move which they didn't have to do.
when something you think is bad gets better but not better enough, say "more please"
The prediction market CEOs on the other hand seem to be actively encouraging insider trading and match fixing, it's practically their main selling point.
Do stock trading next.
Still, it is something. Some chilling effect is better than none. While we do this, it is worthwhile to make prediction markets accessible to our opponents. Ideally, those in corrupt countries aligned against us should be leaking as much information through the markets to us and we should enrich them for it. I'd love to have this kind of distributed espionage with the largest number of bets being on the actions of those aligned against us.
For example, if you are a company whose current business would be severely hurt if a particular piece of legislation passes, it might make sense to hedge that risk by placing a bet on a prediction market that the legislation will pass. That way, if your business is hurt by the legislation, you can use the proceeds to offset the harm and pivot to something else.
Of course, that doesn’t explain most prediction market contracts, but that is the idea at least.
I am not taking a position, I am wondering.
When they started they were an academic curiosity and experiment. Now they are becoming a social phenomenon are they more harmful than, say, stamp collecting?
"Fools and their money" is OK so long as the fools are truly volunteering, surely?
I don't give a shit about the addicts losing their money on those markets, I don't want bad decisions to be made that affect me, when the main incentive for making them is fleecing the addicts of their money.
They are just bribery with extra steps.
Are senators not allow to buy any commodities futures now (it reads like it)?
¹I, and I think most reasonable people, think this is ridiculous - it’s obviously gambling in a trenchcoat, but that’s what they claim…
Whereas prediction markets (and some other stock market/commodity option contracts) are explicitly tied to an event. They're saying "I'll give you $1 if this clearly defined event occurs."
They could even do the sort of things corporate execs at publicly traded companies do, and fill out forms well in advance about future investment purchases, to avoid the ability to time purchases to inside information.
Fine. People motivated by money should take jobs other than sitting in Congress.
I am skeptical of an arrangement where those incentives are at odds with care for critical infrastructure like our political process.
That being said, the current arrangement makes it vastly more profitable to destabilize the economy and sell short than stabilize it and buy long, which is clearly unacceptable to me.
Sortition makes way more sense to me for something like a congress. You just end up with a random selection of the population.
Isn't the solution to needing two homes to do the job for the government to provide that as a work expense rather than permitting funky financial hijinks?
We need a federal law that says: "the definition of material non-public information (MNPI) is extended to mean any non-public information those in federal, state, or local government are privy to that may affect securities prices, and individuals in or adjacent to government are equally subject to prosecution for trading on it".
https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/politician/Nancy...
If we're gonna give this actual attention, we should be focusing on the fact that they should be banned from any form of insider trading or major conflict of interest!
I think this in the previous comment undervalue just how many more complicated ways there are for corruption to bubble.
Assume super strict rules. Consider this example to circumvent them: Senator-elect A makes an LLC and invest their money (with some friends) in it (before taking office)
They can’t even talk to the money manager. But the manager can see their actions, and the senator can know their ow investments and work in their favor.
Maybe they didn't need more uncertainty in their portfolios.
the rules apply to senators, officers and staff
There’s like 2 famous exceptions, other than those they are simply abysmal traders because their information isn’t worth very much. This problem is so overstated, it’s popular because it’s vaguely populist and exhibits an anti elite sentiment
Emphasis mine. This does not cover the judicial or executive branch
https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/716
Both for Senators and Representatives:
- Term limits (2 consecutive terms max) - No stock market participation in any form during office - No corporate or PAC contributions - Prison for lying to the public or during the course of their work (hearings, media, etc.) - Serious legal consequences for defamation or libel - No special medical/healthcare insurance, accounts or treatment - Pensions only bases on their own contributions, nothing else - No lifetime pensions or healthcare - This one is tough: Consequences for campaign promises not met (part of no lies) - Consequences for shutting down government - Serious consequences for not balancing the budget or driving meaningful reductions that will result in a balanced budget in short order - No media-related jobs for five years after leaving office - No book deals for five years after leaving office - No movie deals for five years after leaving office - No fancy office anything that costs more than your average Ikea/Walmart office furniture - Severe consequences for illicit enrichment; a bartender cannot come out of Congress a multi-millionaire, period.
In other words, like any real job by average citizens. They should not be a privileged and protected class.
Politicians enjoy a pile of benefits and privileges that the average citizen has no access to at all.
Simple example: They can lie to you and suffer no consequences. If you lie to them, even a minor lie, you can end up with serious criminal charges.
You took the list as literally applying to average citizens.
You took this part:
"In other words, like any real job by average citizens."
and completely ignored the next sentence:
"They should not be a privileged and protected class."
That's the point.
They are supposed to work for us and represent us, and yet they fly far above us at so many levels it is incredible. This is what students should be demonstrating about. It is destructive and equally corrupt regardless of political party.
In other words, it should be a universal truth (no party exceptions) that politicians should not exist as a class above those who elect them. Simple examples are health insurance, consequences for lies, fully paid lifetime benefits and pensions, etc. This is wrong.
