Polymarket has investigated dozens of bets placed in its midterm election markets for possible insider trading or manipulation, as the prediction-market operator expands surveillance ahead of the November 3 vote. At least two cases have been referred to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to a person familiar with the probes cited by NPR.
Polymarket expands election-market monitoring
Shana Bautista, Polymarket’s head of global intelligence and investigations, told NPR that her 16-person team is reviewing suspicious activity across the company’s two platforms. Bautista joined Polymarket in June after working as an FBI official and crypto analyst.
The company’s new surveillance system combines information from several sources, including social-media activity, Federal Election Commission filings, crypto companies, banking partners and statistical models. Bautista said the system produces “hundreds of alerts a day” when users trigger enough internal warning signs. She did not disclose the specific criteria, citing security concerns.
The monitoring covers Polymarket’s U.S.-regulated exchange, where users must verify their identities, as well as Polymarket International, where users can trade anonymously using cryptocurrency. Bautista said crypto transactions are rarely completely anonymous and that her team has been able to identify potential traders in every case it has handled.
She also warned people with access to confidential information not to use it to trade. Trading on information that someone has a duty to protect violates Polymarket’s terms of use and may also violate the law, she told NPR.
Why election bets face scrutiny
Prediction markets allow participants to trade contracts tied to the outcome of future events. In election markets, prices can be interpreted as an indication of how traders assess the likelihood of a candidate or party winning. That makes access to nonpublic campaign information particularly sensitive.
Rajiv Sethi, an economics professor at Barnard College, told NPR that election markets may be especially vulnerable because market perceptions can influence public views of a candidate’s momentum and potentially affect the result itself.
The issue of election-related insider trading attracted attention in May, when campaign staffers told NPR they had placed thousands of dollars in bets on their own candidates. The staffers said they used information about unreleased polls. Jeff Le Riche, a former trial lawyer at the CFTC, told the outlet that such activity could potentially breach the law because the traders possessed information that was not yet public.
Polymarket’s latest review follows other efforts to address the problem. Its main rival, Kalshi, introduced an FEC-based system in May designed to prevent campaign staffers from betting on elections. In June, Kalshi added employment disclosures for high-risk markets and a risk-scoring system. The company said it had opened more than 150 investigations that year and referred more than 20 cases to law enforcement. NPR also reported that one campaign staffer had found a way around Kalshi’s restrictions.
Regulatory questions and earlier cases
Polymarket partnered with blockchain analytics company Chainalysis in April to develop market-surveillance tools. The partnership came shortly after an active-duty U.S. Army soldier was charged with allegedly using classified information about a raid to place Polymarket bets. According to the source material, the soldier allegedly wagered more than $33,000 and won nearly $410,000. The soldier has pleaded not guilty. Polymarket said it detected the activity and reported it to authorities before the arrest.
NPR reported that the CFTC has generally done little to police prediction markets, leaving much of the monitoring responsibility to the companies operating them. The agency did issue a warning in September concerning “mention markets,” which are contracts linked to whether a named person says particular words or attends an event. CFTC staff said those contracts should be presumed especially susceptible to manipulation. The advisory followed a fine against a teleprompter operator who had traded on speeches the operator had already read.
The latest disclosures put Polymarket’s internal controls under scrutiny as the November 3 election approaches. The company says its surveillance program is designed to identify suspicious activity across both identity-verified and crypto-based trading environments, while the referral of at least two cases to the CFTC shows that some investigations have moved beyond internal review. The details of the cases, including the identities of the traders and the markets involved, were not disclosed in the source material.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar data at the stated times showed the following cryptocurrency prices and performance:
- Polygon (prev. MATIC) (POL): $0.0898082186, up 0.39% over 24 hours and down 0.74% over seven days, as of October 25, 2026, at 22:39 +03:30.
- Ethereum Name Service (ENS): $5.2749448818, down 0.45% over 24 hours and 2.02% over seven days, as of October 25, 2026, at 22:38 +03:30.
- Sentient (SENT): $0.0204390365, down 3.86% over 24 hours and 7.85% over seven days, as of October 25, 2026, at 22:39 +03:30.
