Congress bans itself from betting on its own decisions
S. 4017 — End Prediction Market Corruption Act · Filed by Jeff Merkley (D-OR) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 5, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill bans the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress from trading prediction market contracts (bets on future events). It also restricts senior executive branch officials from trading such contracts on matters they personally handle. The bill requires disclosure of any such trades and empowers the Attorney General to sue violators for civil penalties up to $10,000 per violation or the profit gained, whichever is greater.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a straightforward conflict-of-interest prohibition targeting government officials' ability to trade on inside information. It is a transparency and accountability measure, not a market intervention or subsidy.
What the text implies
- Foreign prediction markets must report U.S. official trades to the CFTC quarterly or face deregistration, creating potential enforcement burden and international coordination challenges.
- The bill requires disclosure of event contracts held by spouses and dependent children of covered officials, extending the conflict-of-interest net beyond the official themselves.
- The CFTC is directed to issue rules on insider trading in event contracts, potentially creating new regulatory authority over prediction markets that may not have existed before.
- Civil penalties are capped at $10,000 per violation or profit gained—for high-value trades, the profit-based penalty may be the only meaningful deterrent, but enforcement depends on Attorney General discretion.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill restricts government officials' ability to profit from inside information about policy decisions, reducing conflicts of interest and corruption risk. Citizens benefit from reduced incentives for officials to make decisions based on personal financial gain rather than public interest, and from transparency requirements that expose any violations.
Named in the bill
President, Vice President, Members of Congress, Senior Executive Branch Officials, Attorney General, CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission), Foreign Boards of Trade, Commodity Exchange Act
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 4 Democrats.
- Mar 5, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Mar 5, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
8 lobbying clients named this bill on 8 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $469,577 in lobbying spend. A filing names 14 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 88% of bills with at least one filing.
Jeff Merkley, the sponsor, reported $514,925 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Public Citizen — $99,577 on 1 filing
- Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma — $80,000 on 1 filing
- Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians — $80,000 on 1 filing
- Boyd Gaming Corporation — $60,000 on 1 filing
- Boyd Gaming Corporation — $60,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (6,239 characters) on Sep 28, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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