Advocates urge Supreme Court to ban judges from cashing in on prediction markets

WASHINGTON (CN) — A judicial advocacy group pressed the Supreme Court and lower federal courts Friday to adopt rules banning jurists and their staff from using prediction markets, the latest push to insulate the government from insider trading on real-world events.

It’s a call that comes just days after the Senate voted unanimously to block themselves from trading on prediction markets, and as a U.S. Army soldier faces criminal charges over hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit made betting on the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Writing in a letter to officials from the Supreme Court and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Gabe Roth, director of reform-minded judicial advocacy group Fix the Court, said there was “little doubt” that using prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi would violate codes of conduct binding the justices and lower court federal judges.

But he argued that there was still evidence that at least some people working inside the judiciary were willing to use their position as leverage.

“[R]ecent leaks of insider information from the judiciary to the press demonstrate that certain individuals may be seeking to use their knowledge to their advantage in some way,” wrote Roth, “It would be a shame to see prediction markets enter these individuals’ calculations.”

Last month, The New York Times published more than a dozen pages of internal deliberations between Supreme Court justices in an apparent leak.

Pointing to that report, Roth said that there was a “straight line” between leaks of insider details from the courts and participation in prediction markets — where that same privileged information could be used to generate massive profits.

“I just want to be sure that the judiciary brass says with a clear voice that that’s not okay,” he told Courthouse News in an interview. “It should be obvious that a judge or justice or their staff shouldn’t be wagering on how a certain case they’re working might come out, but maybe that’s not so obvious, and I think it should be explicit.”

In his letter to the federal court officials, Roth said that the judiciary could implement the prediction market ban via an addendum to the Supreme Court’s existing code of conduct or as an ethics advisory opinion from the lower courts’ code of conduct committee.

“What’s important is that with so much at stake, jurisprudentially and financially, in issues that are before the federal courts … it is important for the public to hear a clarion call asserting branchwide adherence to the highest ethical standards in light of this rising danger,” he wrote.

Roth acknowledged that a ban on prediction markets may not stop court staff from feeding insider information to people outside the judiciary who hope to make profits on prediction markets. But he told Courthouse News a change to the courts’ codes of conduct would be a positive step.

“The responsibility of the judiciary is to control that which they control under the employment obligations of the people who work there,” he said. “It’s not going to be perfect — nothing’s going to stop every potential bet. But you do what you can.”

A spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the organization which oversees the federal district and appellate judiciary, declined to comment. The Supreme Court did not return a request for comment.

Across all three branches of government, officials have grappled with the meteoric rise of prediction markets that allow users to place bets on the outcomes of real-world events. In Congress, lawmakers have worried that such platforms raise the possibility of insider trading — and some have even opined on the moral implications of turning major political decisions into opportunities for profit.

Concerns about prediction markets resulted in concrete action from the Senate this week, which unanimously voted to ban senators and their staff from using them. Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, who sponsored the effort, said in a statement that lawmakers had “no business” engaging with prediction markets while collecting taxpayer-funded paychecks.

Polymarket itself applauded the move, saying in a post on X that its terms of service already prohibit lawmakers from using its platform but that “codifying this into law is a step forward for the industry.”

Fears about government insider trading on prediction markets were further stoked last week after a U.S. army soldier was indicted on five federal charges related to bets he placed on Polymarket ahead of a Jan. 3 military raid in Venezuela.

According to federal prosecutors, Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke bought roughly $34,000 in shares on the betting platform predicting Maduro’s removal from office and a U.S. invasion of Venezuela. His profits exceeded $400,000.

Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty.

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