Elizabeth Warren Plans Prediction Market Crackdown as She Prepares to Chair Senate Banking

Sen. Elizabeth Warren plans to crack down on prediction markets once she takes the Senate Banking Committee gavel in January, with a banking aide telling Punchbowl News that Warren would seek to stop the sector’s “Wild West-style lack of oversight.”

The Massachusetts Democrat is poised to chair the panel after Democrats swept both chambers of Congress last week, putting her in charge of a portfolio that covers banking, housing, the Federal Reserve and cryptocurrency. Punchbowl published the aide’s rundown of her agenda on Monday.

Warren intends to use the committee’s investigative powers for oversight of prediction markets and election betting platforms, aimed at insider trading and platform manipulation — the same fight she opened before the midterms.

That earlier push was bipartisan. On Oct. 28, Warren and Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, wrote to Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour and Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan asking how the companies stop candidates, campaign staff and others with material nonpublic information from trading election contracts.

“We are particularly troubled by election-related event contracts,” the senators wrote . “Event contracts tied to elections receive prominent coverage and are treated by some observers as indicators of political momentum. There are also documented cases of candidates betting on their own races, which undermines the overall integrity of the American electoral process.”

The letter cited candidates who traded on their own contests on Kalshi, including a February 2026 California gubernatorial race, and pointed to research alleging wash trading and volume manipulation on Polymarket. It also referenced an NPR investigation of campaign insiders who said they traded ahead of polling releases.

“The identification of isolated instances of improper trading does not demonstrate that these markets are adequately protected,” Warren and Curtis wrote . “Instead, it raises serious questions about how much similar activity may be going undetected.” They asked for written answers by Election Day, Nov. 3.

Kalshi’s head of enforcement, Robert DeNault, told Business Insider that the company “proactively blocks candidates and campaign staff from trading to protect market integrity.” Polymarket did not respond to that request for comment.

Prediction markets are not a side show for bitcoin readers. Polymarket is a crypto-native venue that settled U.S. access through a CFTC-registered exchange after years offshore, while Kalshi operates as a designated contract market under the Trading Commission. Both sit in the orbit of the same committee Warren is about to run.