Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill to ban betting on government operations following allegations of insider trading on prediction markets. Representatives Greg Casar and Chris Murphy proposed the BETS OFF Act after suspicious bets on potential Iran-U.S. conflict appeared on Polymarket. The move amplifies recent legislative efforts to restrict markets from offering contracts on sensitive events like war and assassination.
Two Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have introduced legislation responding to concerns over “government corruption” on prediction market platforms. Texas Representative Greg Casar and Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said they introduced the Banning Event Trading on Sensitive Operations and Federal Functions (BETS OFF) Act. They announced the bill after several Polymarket accounts made “highly unusual bets” that a war between the U.S. and Israel against Iran would begin.
Murphy said on March 4 it was likely people with “inside information” of President Donald Trump’s plan to bomb Iran made the bets. “We shouldn’t live in a country where someone sitting in the situation room making decisions about whether to invade or to bomb, decisions about war and peace, life and death, that those decisions could be driven by the fact that they have hundreds of thousands of dollars riding on the decision,” said Casar.
The bill is the latest twist in lawmakers’ efforts to crack down on prediction market platforms. Last week, California Senator Adam Schiff introduced the DEATH BETS Act to prevent platforms from listing contracts related to war, terrorism, assassination, and individual deaths.
Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi offer bets on outcomes including sporting events and U.S. politics. However, users betting on specifics of the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran have ignited controversy. A military correspondent with the Times of Israel said he received death threats over his report of an Iranian missile strike date, all “in order to resolve a prediction on Polymarket.”
As of Tuesday, Polymarket still offered bets on outcomes of the U.S.-Israel conflict against Iran. These included whether the U.S. would send ground forces, when a ceasefire might happen, and changes to Iranian leadership.
“The promise of prediction markets is to harness the wisdom of the crowd to create accurate, unbiased forecasts for the most important events to society,” said Polymarket in a note on Middle East markets. Kalshi, in contrast, offered event contracts related to the Iranian conflict but not on specific military actions.
