The US Senate voted unanimously on 2026-05-04 to ban senators from making bets on prediction markets and to fold the prohibition into its conflict-of-interest rules. The resolution does not need House approval, though the House has its own pending ban for members. [1]
Sen. Bernie Moreno, the Ohio Republican who introduced the measure, said senators should not be allowed to take part in speculative trading while on the public payroll, saying, "United States Senators have no business engaging in speculative activities like prediction markets while collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck, period." [1]
Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, added an amendment to extend the ban to Senate officers and employees. He said the revised rule was "a commonsense step to ensure that senators and their staff cannot use their positions of public trust to line their own pockets." [1]
The Senate ethics rules are enforced by the Senate Ethics Committee, but the system is widely seen as less effective than the one in the House, according to the facts behind the resolution. [1]
The vote came after Kalshi said it had caught three congressional candidates betting on their own campaigns about a week earlier. It also came as Padilla pushed separate legislation aimed at stopping Trump administration officials from profiting from insider knowledge, including military operations. [1]
The broader push against prediction-market abuse has also reached the military. A US Army soldier was recently arrested for insider trading through prediction markets tied to the timing of any move to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. [1]
