House Democrat targets candidate prediction market trades after opponent’s Kalshi penalty — SkimNews
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- Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.) introduced the "No Betting on Your Own Race Act" on Monday, which would prohibit candidates for federal office from trading on prediction-market contracts related to their own elections.
- The bill would impose a fine of $10,000 or three times the net financial gain from the trade — whichever figure is larger — codifying insider-trading enforcement that platforms have handled on their own.
- The proposal follows an August settlement between Laurie Buckhout, Davis's Republican opponent in North Carolina's 1st Congressional District, and Kalshi, after the platform found she traded on contracts related to her own candidacy; she paid just under $2,600 and received a three-year suspension.
- Buckhout called the trades "a dumb mistake," saying "I bet on myself. Literally," while Davis said at the time on X that her actions amounted to "a disqualifying breach of public trust."
- The House and Senate aren't scheduled to reconvene until after the midterm elections, meaning the bill has virtually no path to passage for the current cycle.
- In April, the Senate approved a resolution banning senators and their staff from trading on prediction markets — a move praised by Kalshi and Polymarket — but the resolution didn't extend to non-incumbent Senate candidates, and the House has yet to pass a comparable measure.
Why it matters: Federal candidates currently face only platform-level penalties for trading on their own elections — Buckhout paid roughly $2,600 to Kalshi and got a three-year suspension. Davis's bill would convert that patchwork into a federal regime with a $10,000 minimum fine, but Congress isn't scheduled back until after the election, meaning the bill functions as campaign messaging rather than imminent law.
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