Don Moynihan warns prediction platforms still tied to insider trading
Political scientist Don Moynihan published a July 20 Substack post revisiting his March critique of Polymarket and Kalshi, questioning the prediction platforms' ties to insider trading. The piece comes as both platforms race to tighten surveillance and ban suspicious accounts but have not fully stemmed the problem. Moynihan's post does not detail new enforcement actions, regulatory rulings, or platform responses. It extends his earlier analysis amid intensifying scrutiny of prediction market integrity.
Moynihan's academic critique matters because it arms lawmakers and regulators with outside authority to demand harder platform action. His earlier March analysis predated the live White House teleprompter case and Arizona's executive ban. That sequence gives his July revisit timing weight: he is not shouting into a vacuum but testifying to a pattern now documented by enforcement and state action. Kalshi and Polymarket, the danger is that outsider narrative-building turns discrete incidents into systemic scandal.
Congressional staff read Moynihan; his framing can harden hearing questions and bill language faster than volume metrics alone. The platforms' self-regulation efforts, incomplete per Bloomberg, now face dual audit from federal investigators and opinion-leaders who define whether the problem is manageable or existential. The one that closes its surveillance gaps first may shape whether Congress prescribes platform-specific rules or industry-wide prohibition.
Adds Moynihan's outside pressure to a three-sided accountability push already encompassing Kalshi's own surveillance flagging White House staff trades, CFTC enforcement interest, and state-level employee bans.