Campaign Staffers Trade Internal Polls on Polymarket in Third Insider Pattern

NPR Documents Third Polymarket Insider Trading Pattern arsenic Federal Response Lags Campaign Layer

An anonymous run staffer told NPR earlier this month that they and colleagues routinely placed Polymarket bets connected interior polling information earlier nationalist release, generating thousands of dollars per cycle. Seven House Democrats led by Rep. Chris Pappas sent a missive to the House Oversight Committee connected Monday requesting subpoenas and an probe into the broader insider trading pattern.

This is the 3rd Polymarket-specific lawsuit that NPR has surfaced successful 3 months. In March, the media enactment reported connected a $553,000 Polymarket stake placed connected Iran and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei soon earlier the Israeli onslaught that killed him.

In April, NPR analyzed information showing a Polymarket trader had profited astir $300,000 connected bets tied to President Biden’s last-minute pardons. The May campaign-staffer communicative is the archetypal to aboveground a self-described subordinate alternatively than an unidentified large- stake trader.

The CFTC filed its archetypal event-contract insider trading ailment connected April 23, 2026, charging Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke of the US Army Special Forces with utilizing classified accusation astir US operations to seizure Venezuelan person Nicolás Maduro.

The Department of Justice filed a parallel five-count transgression indictment successful the Southern District of New York the aforesaid day, signed by US Attorney Jay Clayton. The ailment marked the archetypal usage of the “Eddie Murphy Rule,” a Dodd-Frank proviso targeting misuse of nonpublic authorities information.

Legislative effect has truthful acold concentrated connected authorities officials alternatively than run workers. On April 30, the US Senate adopted Resolution 708 by unanimous consent, prohibiting senators, officers, and employees from trading connected prediction markets.

Representative Ritchie Torres (D-New York) had introduced the Public Integrity successful Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026 connected January 9, covering federally elected officials, governmental appointees, and enforcement subdivision employees – with 30 House Democrat co-sponsors, including erstwhile Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but nary Republican enactment to date. Neither measurement reaches run unit moving connected autarkic state-level races.