Campaign Staffers Trade Internal Polls on Polymarket in Third Insider Pattern

NPR Documents Third Polymarket Insider Trading Pattern as Federal Response Lags Campaign Layer

An anonymous campaign staffer told NPR earlier this month that they and colleagues routinely placed Polymarket bets on internal polling data before public release, generating thousands of dollars per cycle. Seven House Democrats led by Rep. Chris Pappas sent a letter to the House Oversight Committee on Monday requesting subpoenas and an investigation into the broader insider trading pattern.

This is the third Polymarket-specific instance that NPR has surfaced in three months. In March, the media organization reported on a $553,000 Polymarket bet placed on Iran and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shortly before the Israeli strike that killed him.

In April, NPR analyzed data showing a Polymarket trader had profited approximately $300,000 on bets tied to President Biden’s last-minute pardons. The May campaign-staffer story is the first to surface a self-described participant rather than an unidentified large- stake trader.

The CFTC filed its first event-contract insider trading complaint on April 23, 2026, charging Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke of the US Army Special Forces with using classified information about US operations to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

The Department of Justice filed a parallel five-count criminal indictment in the Southern District of New York the same day, signed by US Attorney Jay Clayton. The complaint marked the first use of the “Eddie Murphy Rule,” a Dodd-Frank provision targeting misuse of nonpublic government information.

Legislative response has so far concentrated on government officials rather than campaign workers. On April 30, the US Senate adopted Resolution 708 by unanimous consent, prohibiting senators, officers, and employees from trading on prediction markets.

Representative Ritchie Torres (D-New York) had introduced the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026 on January 9, covering federally elected officials, political appointees, and executive branch employees – with 30 House Democrat co-sponsors, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but no Republican support to date. Neither measure reaches campaign staff working on independent state-level races.