It makes sense to ban government officials from betting. It's hard enough to enforce insider trading. With legal betting, it's literally impossible.

Another worrying issue with betting is just how prevalent the last election was in betting markets. In elections won by thousands or even just hundreds of votes, betting markets can skew results where betters vote for someone just purely for the bet and persuade, shill for the person they bet on.

I can imagine betters placing a bet on a candidate and then launching a defamation campaign against the other.

Unfortunately, it's not just elected officials that are problematic for prediction markets. The Secretary of War, for instance is not an elected official nor are leaders of the armed forces and there is definitely a prediction market for war. Multiply this by every powerful appointee and every career bureaucrat and see what kind of picture that paints.

> Following multiple public reports on the growing influence of prediction markets and their potential for corruption, Merkley and Klobuchar introduced the End Prediction Market Corruption Act — a new bill to ban the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, and other public officials from trading event contracts. The bill will ensure that federal elected officials maintain their oath of office to serve the people by preventing them from trading on information that they gained through their role.

If we can't ban them from trading stocks, good luck with this.

> you have the perfect recipe to undermine the public’s belief that government officials are working for the public good

The public already does not believe this. Less than 25% approve of your work.

> This legislation strengthens the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s ability to go after bad actors

And this is designed to "increase trust?"