The United States Senate voted unanimously Thursday to ban its own members, officers, and staff from placing bets on prediction markets, a rare display of bipartisan agreement driven by growing alarm that lawmakers with access to sensitive information could cash in on platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, the Ohio Republican who introduced the resolution, celebrated the voice vote Thursday afternoon. The rules change takes effect immediately.
The action came just two days after prediction markets landed in national headlines tied to the mission to capture former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, and a criminal case in which a U.S. Army soldier allegedly used classified information to win more than $400,000 betting on that very operation.
The resolution amends Senate rules to prohibit senators from participating in event-based contracts tied to specific outcomes on prediction markets. An amendment from Sen. Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, broadened the ban to cover Senate officers and employees as well. Padilla's amendment also recommended that the House, the executive branch, and the judiciary adopt similar self-regulation.
That means the ban is not a suggestion. It is an enforceable internal rule, and it is already in force. Platforms named in the resolution include Polymarket and Kalshi, two of the most prominent prediction-market exchanges.
The scope matters. Prediction markets allow users to wager real money on the outcomes of elections, geopolitical events, economic data releases, and military operations. For anyone sitting in a classified briefing, or staffing the senator who sits in one, the temptation is obvious and the risk to national security is real.
The immediate catalyst was the case of Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a U.S. Army soldier who prosecutors say placed a prediction-market bet on Maduro's capture using classified information from the military operation itself. Van Dyke allegedly won over $400,000 from the wager. He has pled not guilty.
That case put a sharp point on what had been a simmering debate. AP News reported that the Senate action comes amid rising concern that people with access to sensitive information could profit from prediction-market bets, including scrutiny over bets related to Iran and the Venezuela operation.
A soldier with a security clearance betting on a covert mission he knew about is bad enough. The prospect of a sitting senator, privy to intelligence briefings, advance economic data, and behind-the-scenes legislative negotiations, doing the same thing is the kind of scenario that erodes public trust in government overnight.
Moreno framed the issue in exactly those terms. In a statement, the freshman senator said:
"United States Senators have no business engaging in speculative activities like prediction markets while collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck, period."
He added that serving in Congress "should never be about finding new ways to profit; it should be about delivering results for the American people." On X, Moreno wrote that "Americans deserve to know that their leaders are here for the right reason!"
Unanimous Senate votes are not common. On most issues that touch financial regulation, technology, or personal conduct rules, the chamber splinters along predictable lines. That every senator present voted yes Thursday suggests the insider-trading optics of prediction-market gambling were simply too toxic for anyone to defend.
The recent bipartisan housing bill that cleared the Senate 89, 10 showed the chamber can still find common ground on pocketbook issues. But a voice vote with zero opposition is a different animal. It signals that no senator wanted to be on record, even implicitly, defending the right to bet on wars and elections while holding a government security clearance.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and Senate minority leader, told Politico that it is "a good thing that the Senate is moving swiftly." The Washington Times reported Schumer went further on the Senate floor:
"We must never allow Congress to turn into a casino where members representing the public can gamble on wars or economic crises or elections."
Schumer also called on Speaker Johnson to "immediately do the same thing in the House." Whether the House acts remains an open question. The lower chamber has its own procedural dynamics, and recent legislative fights over surveillance powers have shown that what sails through one chamber can stall in the other.
Moreno did not stumble into this issue. The Washington Examiner reported that when the Ohio Republican introduced the resolution, he explicitly said he would call for it to be passed unanimously. That is a procedural bet of its own, any single senator can block a unanimous consent request. The fact that none did tells you how radioactive the issue had become.
The Examiner also noted that Congress is increasingly focused on prediction-market insider trading, with Democratic senators pursuing similar legislation and added urgency after the DOJ indicted Van Dyke. Moreno, a first-term Republican, managed to get out in front of the issue and claim the win, a useful move for a freshman looking to build a reform-minded brand.
The broader Senate political landscape makes this kind of clean, bipartisan achievement valuable for members on both sides of the aisle heading into future cycles. Nobody wants to explain to voters back home why they defended a senator's right to gamble on classified intelligence.
The resolution applies only to the Senate. It does not bind the House, the executive branch, or the federal judiciary. Padilla's amendment recommended those institutions adopt similar rules, but a recommendation carries no enforcement power.
That leaves a significant gap. Executive branch officials, military officers, intelligence analysts, and federal judges all have access to nonpublic information that could move prediction markets. Just The News reported that some senators want to expand the ban government-wide through legislation, a heavier lift that would require both chambers and a presidential signature.
The Van Dyke case illustrates why the Senate-only approach is incomplete. Van Dyke is not a senator. He is a soldier. His alleged conduct, using classified military intelligence to bet on a covert operation, falls entirely outside the scope of Thursday's resolution. Prosecuting him under existing law is one thing. Preventing the next case requires rules that reach every corner of government where sensitive information flows.
There is also the question of enforcement. Senate rules are enforced internally, through the Ethics Committee. History suggests that internal enforcement mechanisms work best when the violation is clear-cut and public pressure is high. Whether the Senate will police quiet, small-dollar prediction-market activity with the same vigor it showed in Thursday's unanimous vote remains to be seen.
And then there is the familiar pattern of the Senate acting swiftly on a high-profile issue while harder structural reforms languish. Banning senators from prediction markets is a clean, easy win. Building a government-wide insider-trading framework for a new class of financial instruments is not.
Moreno deserves credit for moving fast. The Van Dyke indictment put prediction-market abuse on the front page, and the Ohio senator had a resolution on the floor and through the chamber within days. That is the kind of responsiveness voters say they want from Congress.
The bipartisan cooperation is also worth noting. Padilla's amendment strengthened the resolution, and Schumer's public support gave it Democratic cover. When both parties agree that government officials should not be gambling on events they have inside knowledge of, the argument is over. The only question is how far the ban eventually extends.
For now, the Senate has drawn a clear line. Its members, their staffs, and its officers cannot touch Polymarket, Kalshi, or any similar platform. The rule is immediate. The vote was unanimous. And the underlying principle, that public servants should not profit from privileged information, is one that taxpayers of every political persuasion can get behind.
The Senate did the obvious thing. Now the question is whether the rest of Washington will follow, or whether it takes another soldier betting six figures on a classified mission to force the issue again.