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Story: Congress Members Could Lose Prediction Market Profits Under Steil’s $2,000 Fine Bill

By Dan Saada

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No Loopholes for Fines Either. One specific provision closes a gap that's easy to imagine getting exploited.

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Senate Already Moving on Similar Ground. Steil's bill isn't the only one circling this issue.

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Kalshi and Polymarket Already Tightening Controls. The platforms named in the bill haven't been sitting still.

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A Wisconsin Republican wants to shut lawmakers out of prediction markets entirely. Representative Bryan Steil dropped the Stop Lawmakers from Predicting Act on June 18, targeting…

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The bill isn't coming out of nowhere. Steil chairs the House Administration Committee and spent earlier this year pushing the Stop Insider Trading Act through the same chamber.

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Penalties aren't soft. Violators face a $2,000 fine or 10% of the transaction value — whichever hits harder — and they'd forfeit any net gains from the bet entirely.

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One specific provision closes a gap that's easy to imagine getting exploited. The bill bars lawmakers from using official allowances, Senate expense accounts, or political…

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That's a meaningful addition. Congressional ethics fines have a long history of getting absorbed quietly into campaign infrastructure or office budgets.

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Steil's bill isn't the only one circling this issue. Back in March, a bipartisan Senate group — Senators Todd Young, Elissa Slotkin, John Curtis, and Adam Schiff — put forward…

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And there's the House's PREDICT Act, which extends restrictions to officials' family members, mirroring what Steil's legislation does on the congressional side.

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Read also: Bitcoin Faces a 10-Year Wait to Crack the Worlds Top 5 Assets by Market Cap

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Bipartisan support is probably the deciding factor here. Prediction markets have fans and critics scattered across both parties, and the politics of regulating them are murky.

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The platforms named in the bill haven't been sitting still. Kalshi rolled out risk scoring, employment checks, and whistleblower channels — all aimed at flagging users who might…

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Polymarket went a different direction. The platform partnered with Chainalysis to build an on-chain surveillance system designed to monitor transactions and catch patterns that…

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Neither company has said publicly whether Steil's bill would hurt their business. That's unclear.

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