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Sen. Elizabeth Warren will use the Senate Banking Committee chairmanship she assumes in January to push for tighter rules on prediction markets, a banking aide said, describing her goal as ending what the aide called a “Wild West-style” absence of oversight. Bitcoin Magazine reported the plans, which the aide outlined to Punchbowl News on Monday; the agenda was also described to CNBC.
The Massachusetts Democrat is in line for the gavel after Democrats won both chambers of Congress in last week’s midterm elections. The committee’s jurisdiction reaches banking, housing, Federal Reserve policy, export controls and cryptocurrency — placing two prediction-market operators, Kalshi and Polymarket, inside its reach.
Also readCFTC monitors prediction markets for manipulation before midterms
Key facts
- Warren intends to use the committee’s investigative powers to examine insider trading and platform manipulation on prediction markets and election betting platforms, according to the aide.
- On Oct. 28, Warren and Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, wrote to Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour and Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan asking how the firms block people with material nonpublic information — candidates and campaign staff among them — from trading election contracts. They requested written answers by Election Day, Nov. 3.
- The letter cited candidates who traded on their own races on Kalshi, including a February 2026 California gubernatorial contest, and referenced research alleging wash trading and volume manipulation on Polymarket.
- Kalshi’s head of enforcement, Robert DeNault, told Business Insider the company “proactively blocks candidates and campaign staff from trading to protect market integrity.” Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment, per Bitcoin Magazine.
- Warren opposed the CLARITY Act market structure bill, which failed a Senate cloture vote 49-50 on Sept. 15.
A bipartisan letter, now backed by subpoena power
The inquiry into the two platforms began before the election and was not a partisan effort: Curtis, a Utah Republican, signed the Oct. 28 letter alongside Warren. In it, the senators wrote that they were “particularly troubled by election-related event contracts” and that documented cases of candidates betting on their own races undermine confidence in the electoral process. They also said that finding isolated instances of improper trading does not show the markets are adequately protected, and raises questions about activity going undetected.
What changes in January is leverage. Committee chairmen can issue subpoenas to compel testimony and documents, a step the October letter did not carry. The aide’s agenda, as reported by CNBC, also includes capping credit card interest rates, follow-up housing legislation to Warren’s 21st Century Road to Housing Act, measures on medical, consumer and student debt, and tighter export controls on advanced AI chips sold to China, alongside domestic AI rulemaking. Warren has urged tech CEOs, administration officials, Wall Street executives and the Trump family’s crypto businesses to preserve documents, the aide told CNBC.
Also readCFTC Reopens Review of Polymarket's 2022 $1.4M Settlement
Two regulators, opposite directions
The push arrives as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, under Chairman Michael S. Selig, has spent 2026 defending prediction platforms against state gambling laws — an approach that included CFTC enforcement action against state regulators to assert exclusive federal jurisdiction over event contracts on registered exchanges, with Wisconsin, New York and others named. Kalshi operates as a designated contract market under the CFTC; Polymarket is crypto-native and reached U.S. access through a CFTC-registered exchange after years offshore.
The two outlets’ accounts overlap closely. Both attribute the agenda to an unnamed banking aide; CNBC notes the aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the agenda has not been formally announced, while Bitcoin Magazine’s account cites the aide’s rundown published by Punchbowl. Neither outlet reported a specific bill, hearing date or enforcement proposal.
Why it matters
The fight over whether election and event contracts are legitimate hedging and information markets or disguised gambling has run through courts and statehouses this year. A Banking chair hostile to the sector adds a third front in Congress, where subpoena power can force executives to testify under oath. For crypto readers, the question is narrower: Polymarket and Kalshi both depend on federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission recognition, and a committee that can summon their leaders can also shape the legislation that codifies or constrains it. The same gavel will sit over any Democratic effort to write market-structure rules, an area where the CLARITY Act already failed.
What to watch
Three markers: whether Kalshi and Polymarket’s written responses to the Oct. 28 letter become the basis for formal hearings after January, what a Democratic House package with a larger SEC role looks like, and whether Warren’s committee formally takes up prediction-market legislation rather than oversight alone. None of the reports specified timing beyond the January start of the new Congress.
This article reports on regulatory and legislative developments and is not financial advice; prediction-market and crypto markets are volatile and outcomes are uncertain.
Sources: Bitcoin Magazine, CNBC
