Transcript
A (0:00)
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B (0:59)
It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark, and I'm joined by Congressman Richie Torres of New York. We're here to talk about betting online and futures betting and prediction markets and why this congressman thinks there needs to be some regulations. They seem sensible to me, honestly, although we'll talk about it. So, Congressman, why don't you outline to the the listener what it is that your new legislation would do for these prediction markets.
C (1:26)
Sure. So when I saw an anonymous trader on Polymarket pocket $400,000 from a bet predicting the capture of Nicolas Maduro, and keep in mind, the bet was made hours before the actual event. It had all the markings of insider trading. And so I just felt compelled to introduce legislation that would prohibit insider trading in prediction markets among federal government officials, because there's a risk of not only corrupting the market, but corrupting the government itself. Suppose you are a member of Donald Trump's inner circle and you placed a bet predicting the collapse of or the capture of Nicolas Maduro. You would have a profit, a personal profit motive to advocate for a particular policy outcome from which you would benefit. And that should be categorically prohibited.
B (2:23)
This is coming in the context of a lot of congressional activity around banning stock sales. I think back to, for instance, the run up to the COVID pandemic in the winter of 2020, and you had questionable sales of stocks around medical suppliers, for instance, that seemed like they were coming from a source of knowledge after members of Congress are getting briefings from health officials. It leads to the question of how widespread is this type of taking insider knowledge and applying it to the markets among lawmakers? And you're up there on the Hill. I mean, can you answer that question? How widespread do you think this type of action is?