House Oversight chair demands insider-trading records from Kalshi and Polymarket CEOs
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) on Friday, May 22, launched a formal investigation into prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket over potential insider trading on event contracts. Comer is demanding internal records and surveillance documentation from both companies' CEOs about policies to prevent traders from exploiting non-public information, with a response deadline of June 5. The probe centers on whether federal employees and other market participants with privileged access are using non-public intelligence to trade on political, policy, and geopolitical outcomes. Comer publicly called prediction markets 'the wild west' in a CNBC interview accompanying the announcement. The investigation adds a new layer of congressional scrutiny to the emerging sector, which has drawn increasing trading volume and parallel regulatory attention from the CFTC, DOJ, and multiple state authorities.
Kalshi and Polymarket must produce surveillance records to Comer by June 5 while the same conduct is under review by DOJ-CFTC and four state enforcement proceedings. Any gap between congressional disclosures and other regulatory filings becomes real-time evidence in those parallel cases.
Becomes the fourth concurrent congressional or federal enforcement action targeting Kalshi and Polymarket this month, after the Senate ban, DOJ-CFTC's Van Dyke charges, and spreading state-level prohibitions in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.