California bans officials from profiting in prediction markets using insider information

California Governor Newsom signed an executive order on the 27th prohibiting administrative officials appointed by the governor from using inside information to profit in prediction markets. The governor’s office said in a statement that some officials in the U.S. who are obviously able to access sensitive information from the federal government have “extremely precise” timing when placing bets in prediction markets. The statement also criticized some officials for turning public service into a “get-rich-quick” scheme. The statement said that four prediction trading cases show that people without inside information are extremely unlikely to make the relevant trades. The prediction profits ranged from tens of thousands to millions of dollars, involved multiple U.S. military actions related to Venezuela and Iran, and some predictions opened prediction-market accounts just days before the actions or placed bets hours before the actions took place. Six suspected insiders who bet that the U.S. would launch a military strike on Iran collectively profited $1.2 million, and they had opened prediction market accounts exactly days before the conflict. (Xinhua News Agency)