U.S. senators won’t be weighing in on prediction markets bets after banning themselves
The Senate agreed unanimously to revise its rules to ban members and their staffs from wagers on prediction markets platforms.
What to know:
- The U.S. Senate voted unanimously to approve a resolution that would prohibit senators and their staffs from betting in the prediction markets.
- Its author, Republican Bernie Moreno, said the lawmakers “have no business” engaging in such activities.
Acting on a simple, 14-line resolution pushed by Ohio Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, the Senate agreed unanimously to put a restriction between members and the increasingly popular, controversial betting platforms that have drawn scrutiny over insider-trading activity and fights over who has regulatory jurisdiction.
“United States Senators have no business engaging in speculative activities like prediction markets while collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck, period,” said Senator Moreno in a Thursday statement. “Serving in Congress should never be about finding new ways to profit; it should be about delivering results for the American people.”
Effective immediately, the change to Senate rules now holds that senators can’t enter “an agreement, contract, or transaction that provides for any purchase, sale, payment, or delivery that is dependent on the occurrence, nonoccurrence, or the extent of the occurrence of a specific event.”
Political betting has surged in popularity, and some candidates for office have already been penalized for wagering on their own races.
