2026-06-08T10:01:51.114Z / 路透社
华盛顿6月8日电（路透社）——专家和最新数据显示，随着数千场选举催生了越来越多能让内部人士通过不断新增的平台快速牟利的途径，预测市场监管机构可能难以对美国中期选举的押注活动进行监管。
两大头部平台Kalshi和Polymarket上出现的大量可疑交易，引发了人们的担忧：这些快速扩张的市场正在为内幕交易创造新渠道。
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Kalshi今年4月暂停了三名国会候选人押注自己参选席位的交易，监管机构正在调查前国会议员乔治·桑托斯是否在该平台上存在潜在内幕交易行为。
内幕交易专家表示，这可能只是冰山一角。相关人士指出，今年全美将有至少6590个州和联邦立法席位进行选举，预计押注热潮将考验这个新兴市场的保障机制——在该市场中，内幕交易在法律上仍处于模糊地带，而监管机构也人手不足。
“如果中期选举期间发生内幕交易，我们可能会反应迟缓，甚至完全没有应对措施，”研究过预测市场监管的西顿霍尔法学院教授伊利亚·贝林说道。他补充道，在多项民调显示许多美国人已经担忧选举制度岌岌可危的当下，可疑交易将损害公众对民主的信任。
Kalshi、Polymarket以及正争取对预测市场拥有管辖权的商品衍生品监管机构——美国商品期货交易委员会（CFTC）均表示，它们已配备各类监控工具和其他资源，能够应对这一挑战。
两家平台也在加强监管措施：Kalshi禁止政客和竞选工作人员进行选举押注，Polymarket则打击利用内幕信息进行交易的行为。今年4月，美国参议院已禁止议员及其工作人员参与预测市场押注。
皮尤研究中心的数据显示，Kalshi和Polymarket的全球月度总交易量从9月以来激增近五倍，4月达到约240亿美元，而去年美国合法体育博彩的月均押注金额约为140亿美元。
CFTC的一位发言人表示：“随着创新拓展了我们市场的覆盖范围和复杂性，我们将在运营和技术层面同步发展。”他补充称，该机构将“积极执法”。
桑托斯的律师拒绝置评。
日益加剧的信息不对称
预测市场允许交易者买卖针对一系列事件结果的二元“是”或“否”合约。
例如，交易者可以押注哪个政党将控制国会或州议会，也可以押注个别竞选席位以及相关竞选活动和候选人的相关事件。
据美国全国州议会会议数据，除了约470个国会席位选举外，今年还有6122个州和地区立法席位进行选举，此外还有地区检察官、市长、司法机构等其他职位的地方选举。每位候选人都会形成内部知情人群——包括竞选工作人员、民调人员、筹款人、捐赠者、亲友等。
法律专家表示，尽管商品衍生品市场禁止内幕交易，但相关案件相对较少。贝林指出，就选举押注而言，存在大量潜在相关的非公开信息，从未公布的民调数据到即将爆发的丑闻，其中一些可能连监管机构都不甚了解。
“他们需要学习，而这个学习过程往往伴随着试错，”他补充道。
随着选举押注变得越来越小众化，这类潜在内幕信息的范围也在扩大。非营利研究组织反腐败数据集体（ACDC）的数据显示，2024年这个大选年，Polymarket上线了1293个相关市场，交易量达726亿美元。
ACDC研究员米歇尔·肯德勒-克雷奇表示，去年美国大选竞争较少，Polymarket上的美国选举市场数量有所下降，但每个席位对应的市场数量却增长了七倍，达到17.4个，这表明选举市场正变得更加细化。
ACDC此前未公开的分析显示，这些市场如今越来越不关注竞选胜负，而是聚焦于竞选的各项变量，例如选民投票率、胜选差距以及候选人退选时间等。
例如去年，Polymarket就纽约市市长民主党初选中“无效选票”（即给已被淘汰的候选人排名的选票）的占比设立了多个市场。
肯德勒-克雷奇表示，这种趋势“加剧了信息不对称，同时潜在内部知情者数量增加，内幕交易风险也随之上升”。
强化监管措施
除Kalshi和Polymarket外，美国至少还有四家获得授权的平台提供选举合约交易，还有少量经纪商提供相关产品的交易渠道，另有多家机构计划入场。与传统市场一样，这些公司是第一道防线。
Polymarket近期推出了美国业务，但其主要交易所不受美国监管，且通常未强制要求“了解你的客户（KYC）”身份核查。尽管该平台禁止美国居民参与，但监管机构已警告称，这些管控措施很容易被绕过。
该公司的一位发言人表示：“我们拥有全面的市场诚信框架”，并专注于透明度。
这位发言人透露，凭借内部监控系统，Polymarket已向执法部门移交了近100个用户钱包，其中包括一个据称被一名美国士兵用于押注委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗下台的钱包。
Kalshi执法主管罗伯特·德诺尔特表示，该公司将内部人士定义为任何能够直接影响合约结果的人。除KYC核查外，Kalshi还通过公共记录识别联邦政客和竞选工作人员，在他们进行交易前就采取措施，并计划在有可用数据的地方对地方选举实施同样的操作。该公司还会监控交易异常情况。
德诺尔特称，公司可以聚焦于可疑活动子集。“你可以利用相关工具……收集大量信息，”他表示，尽管工作量可能很大，但仍在可控范围内。
曾在2014年至2017年担任CFTC执法主管的艾坦·戈尔曼表示，尽管此类工具功能强大，但每一条线索都必须由人工调查。例如，Kalshi今年4月标记的案件就需要人工最终确认用户身份。
预算数据显示，CFTC的执法人员编制为105个岗位，是至少20年来的最低水平，且许多经验丰富的调查人员已经离职，该机构可能没有足够人力处理大量转介案件，戈尔曼说道。
该机构的发言人表示，他们正依靠经验丰富的人员开展工作，并自去年12月以来一直在持续招聘。
但戈尔曼认为，其资源“远远不足以”满足机构的需求。
道格拉斯·吉利森华盛顿报道；米歇尔·普莱斯、尼克·齐明斯基编辑
US election betting boom to test prediction markets’ insider trading controls
2026-06-08T10:01:51.114Z / Reuters
WASHINGTON, June 8 (Reuters) – Prediction market watchdogs may struggle to police betting on the U.S. midterm elections, with thousands of races offering ever more ways for insiders to make a quick buck on a rising number of platforms, according to experts and new data.
A surge in suspicious trades on Kalshi and Polymarket, the two largest players, has stoked fears that these fast-growing markets are creating new avenues for insider trading.
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Kalshi in April suspended three congressional candidates for betting on their own races, and regulators are investigating whether former congressman George Santos engaged in potential insider trading on the platform.
That may prove to be the tip of the iceberg, said insider trading experts. With at least 6,590 state and federal legislative seats up for election this year, an expected betting bonanza will test safeguards in a novel marketplace where insider trading remains a legally murky concept and its regulator is stretched, the people said.
“We may see a slow response or we may see no response if and when insider trading happens in the midterms,” said Ilya Beylin, a professor at Seton Hall Law School who has studied prediction market oversight. Suspicious trades would undermine Americans’ faith in democracy at a time when polls show many already worry the system is in danger, he added.
Kalshi, Polymarket and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the commodity derivatives regulator which is pushing for jurisdiction over prediction markets, say they are equipped for the challenge with various monitoring tools and other resources.
The platforms are also bolstering controls, with Kalshi blocking election trades by politicians and campaign workers and Polymarket cracking down on trading on private information. In April, the U.S. Senate banned members and staff from prediction market betting.
Combined monthly global trading volumes on Kalshi and Polymarket surged nearly fivefold from September to reach about $24 billion in April, compared to roughly $14 billion a month wagered through legal sportsbooks in the United States last year on average, according to Pew Research Center.
“As innovation expands the reach and complexity of our markets, we are continuing to grow alongside it, both operationally and technologically,” a CFTC spokesperson said, adding the agency will “enforce the law aggressively.”
A lawyer for Santos declined to comment.
GROWING INFORMATION ASYMMETRY
Prediction markets allow traders to buy and sell binary “yes” or “no” contracts on the outcome of an array of events.
Traders can bet, for example, on which party will control Congress or a state legislature, as well as on individual races, and events around those contests and their candidates.
In addition to roughly 470 congressional races, 6,122 state and territorial legislative seats are up for election this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, on top of local races for district attorney, mayor, the judiciary and other offices. Each candidate generates insiders – campaign workers, pollsters, fundraisers, donors, friends and family.
While insider trading is banned in commodity derivatives markets, there have been relatively few cases, said legal experts. And when it comes to elections, there is a smorgasbord of potentially relevant nonpublic information, from unpublished polling data to a brewing scandal, some of which may not be well-understood by regulators, said Beylin.
“They will need to learn, and that learning process often involves trial and error,” he added.
That pool of potential inside information is expanding as election bets become more esoteric. During 2024, a major election year, Polymarket listed 1,293 related markets, with $7.26 billion in trading volume, according to the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, a nonprofit research group.
With few major contests last year, the number of U.S. election markets on Polymarket fell, but the ratio of markets to races rose seven-fold to 17.4, indicating election markets are becoming more granular, according to Michelle Kendler-Kretsch, an ACDC researcher.
Increasingly, they focus less on the winners and losers, and more on the variables of a race, such as voter turnout, margin of victory and when candidates may drop out, according to ACDC’s analysis, which has not previously been reported.
Last year, for example, Polymarket listed multiple markets on the share of “inactive” ballots, or those ranking candidates who have since been eliminated, in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor.
That trend “creates a more significant information asymmetry, while the number of potential insiders grows and the risk of insider trading increases,” said Kendler-Kretsch.
BOLSTERING CONTROLS
Besides Kalshi and Polymarket, there are at least four other U.S.-authorized platforms offering election contracts, a handful of brokers providing access to the products, and several other players hoping to launch. As with traditional markets, the companies are the first line of defense.
Polymarket recently launched a U.S. operation, but its main exchange is not U.S.-regulated and has not generally mandated “Know Your Customer (KYC)” identity checks. While it bars U.S. residents, authorities have flagged concerns that those controls can be easily bypassed.
“We maintain a comprehensive market integrity framework” and the company is focused on transparency, a spokesperson said.
Thanks to internal surveillance, Polymarket has referred nearly 100 user wallets to law enforcement, including one allegedly used by a U.S. soldier to place an inside bet on the removal of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, the spokesperson said.
Kalshi defines an insider as anyone in a position to directly influence a contract’s outcome, said Robert DeNault, the company’s head of enforcement. Aside from KYC checks, Kalshi uses public records to identify federal politicians and campaign staffers before they trade, and plans to do the same for local elections where data is available. It also monitors trades for anomalies.
It can then home in on a subset of suspicious activity, said DeNault. “You can leverage the tools … to gather a lot of information,” he said. Although the workload can be large, it is manageable, he added.
As powerful as such tools are, each lead has to be investigated by humans, said Aitan Goelman, who was CFTC enforcement director from 2014 to 2017. The cases Kalshi flagged in April, for example, showed humans had to conclusively identify the users.
With CFTC enforcement staffing at 105 positions, which budget data shows is its lowest level for at least 20 years, and many experienced investigators having left, the agency may not have the manpower to probe a lot of referrals, said Goelman.
The agency spokesperson said it was relying on experienced personnel and had been hiring continuously since December.
Goelman, though, argued its resources were “not even close” to meeting the agency’s needs.
Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; editing by Michelle Price and Nick Zieminski