White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

White House issues internal guidance prohibiting staff from wagering on prediction markets for political and global events. | Contesto: cronaca

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• White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

Contesto

Senior White House officials have circulated a formal directive instructing all staff members to refrain from placing bets on prediction markets, platforms where users can wager on the outcomes of political events, policy decisions, and global affairs. The guidance, distributed internally this week, explicitly prohibits participation in these increasingly popular digital forums. While the memo did not cite a specific incident, it underscores growing institutional concern over the potential conflicts of interest and ethical pitfalls when government insiders engage in speculative markets tied to their own work. The directive arrives as prediction markets, which allow users to buy and sell shares based on the perceived likelihood of future events, have moved from niche online communities into the financial and political mainstream. These platforms aggregate crowd-sourced forecasts on topics ranging from election results and legislative actions to geopolitical crises and economic indicators. Their rising profile has sparked a complex debate about their utility as tools for gauging public sentiment versus their nature as unregulated gambling venues. Legal and ethics experts note that the White House's move is a preemptive strike against a clear peril: the appearance or reality of insider trading. Federal employees, particularly those with access to non-public information, could theoretically profit from knowledge not available to the general public. "Even the perception that a staffer might be monetizing confidential information is devastating to public trust," said one government ethics attorney familiar with such policies, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Existing federal regulations already broadly prohibit employees from engaging in any outside activity that conflicts with their official duties. The internal prohibition also highlights a broader, unresolved tension within the U.S. government regarding the status of prediction markets. Over two decades ago, a controversial Pentagon program proposing a market for predicting terrorist attacks was swiftly shut down following public outcry. Today, while no federal law explicitly bans citizens from using such...

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Categoria: cronaca