House GOP Bill Targets Lawmaker Bets on Kalshi, Polymarket

Rep. Bryan Steil, who chairs the House Administration Committee, is preparing to add prediction-market language to H.R. 7008, the Stop Insider Trading Act he introduced in January. The bill would bar members of Congress from trading on election outcomes and public policy decisions, extending an existing push to ban lawmakers and their families from holding publicly traded stocks.

Steil’s target is narrow. Sports-related contracts, such as a Super Bowl winner market, are not included. His concern is trades on events that lawmakers can directly influence or access information about before the public does.

The House move follows the Senate’s April rule change, which passed by unanimous consent. Sen. Bernie Moreno’s office confirmed the measure bars senators, officers and staff from entering financial contracts whose payout depends on whether a specific event occurs.

The House proposal goes further in one respect: Steil wants statutory language rather than a chamber rule. A statute carries the force of law after a lawmaker leaves office. A chamber rule does not.

Prediction markets have drawn broader congressional attention this year. House Oversight Chair James Comer launched an inquiry into Kalshi and Polymarket in May, seeking details on user verification and trading patterns around government actions. The House Financial Services Committee held a Republican-only roundtable this week with prediction-market executives and the American Gaming Association.

Speaker Mike Johnson has said he intends to bring the stock-trading ban to the House floor this summer. Steil said the prediction-market language could be added through a committee markup or a manager’s amendment. Democrats have criticised the bill as too narrow because it stops new trades but lets members keep existing positions.

💡 TGJ Take

A lawmaker trading on a vote they are about to cast is not a grey area. Restricting that is defensible policy, and Kalshi and Polymarket should not fight it. The smarter play for prediction-market operators is to support narrow insider-trading rules clearly and loudly, because it separates their product from the conduct Congress is actually targeting. The risk here is not Steil’s bill. It is the Comer probe and the roundtable format, which frame election contracts as an integrity problem rather than a financial one. If that framing sticks, state regulators in markets like New Jersey and Illinois will have political cover to move against event-based products entirely. Operators and affiliates active in US regulated markets should monitor the Comer inquiry timeline, not the stock-ban vote.