Campaign staffers profit from betting on their own candidates : NPR

Key Points:

• A campaign staffer from a Southern statewide race revealed to NPR that they and others regularly placed bets on their own candidates using unreleased internal poll data on prediction markets, profiting thousands of dollars before the polls were made public.
• This practice raises potential legal issues, as experts like former CFTC trial lawyer Jeff Le Riche suggest it could constitute insider trading under the Commodity Exchange Act due to use of material non-public information for financial gain.
• The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which regulates prediction markets, currently lacks clear enforcement experience and resources to address election-related insider trading, leading to calls for Congressional action to clarify and strengthen oversight.
• Despite some recent bans and fines by prediction market platforms like Kalshi against political candidates betting on themselves, campaign staffers remain largely unregulated, and bipartisan legislative efforts to restrict such activity have yet to advance.
• The growing popularity of prediction markets for election betting, combined with regulatory gaps and ethical concerns, has prompted warnings from the White House and Senate rules prohibiting lawmakers and their staff from trading, but broader protections for campaign operatives are still lacking.