The New Washington Temptation: Inside Information and a Prediction Market Account

WASHINGTON—Alarm bells went off inside the White House Counsel’s Office earlier this year when anonymous Polymarket accounts first bet five-figure sums that President Trump and Iran would agree to an initial ceasefire by the end of April.

Senior officials privately raised concerns that the users may have leveraged inside information to secure an easy payday on the prediction market, according to people familiar with the matter. White House lawyers spoke with staff, asking who from the hundreds of aides working inside the building could be making bets. 

These lawyers concluded it would be nearly impossible to determine whether administration officials were behind the bets because Polymarket allows users to open accounts anonymously, the people said, even though authorities have successfully traced the proceeds of those wagers. Instead, officials sent a warning shot: a late March memo telling staff they were prohibited from using nonpublic information for financial benefit. Three anonymous Polymarket accounts later made over $600,000 correctly betting on the April ceasefire announcement, according to blockchain research firm Bubblemaps.

White House officials are among those grappling with how deeply political betting has worked itself into the fabric of Washington, a town that runs on information traded in the marble halls of Congress, on the sidelines of campaign events and at after-work happy hours on K Street. The exploding popularity of prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi with young staffers who have access to this information has created a pervasive temptation that is growing in advance of November’s elections.