Congress Demands Answers From CFTC Regarding Suspected Insider Trading on Iran War
Posted on: April 10, 2026, 12:33h.
Last updated on: April 10, 2026, 12:33h.
- US Rep. Torres wants the CFTC to probe Polymarket trading related to the US-Iran ceasefire
- Newly formed trading accounts on Polymarket made $550K in profits on the ceasefire deal
- Prediction markets continue to face insider trading scrutiny
Democratic lawmakers in Congress are demanding answers from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which regulates prediction markets, on suspected insider trading linked to the United States’ war with Iran.
As Casino.org reported earlier in the week, a slew of suspicious activity was experienced on Polymarket in the moments leading up to President Donald Trump announcing a two-week ceasefire.
Dune, a crypto-analytics firm, detected that at least 50 new accounts were registered with Polymarket only hours before Trump and Iran called a 14-day truce. Those accounts wagered heavily on a ceasefire, delivering the accounts with profits of approximately $550,000.
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) sits on the House Financial Services Committee, as well as the Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence and National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions subcommittees. Torres is calling on the CFTC to probe the well-timed bets to determine if illicit activity involving misappropriated information was used for personal financial gain.
Congressman Wants Explanation
The CFTC under the Trump administration has moved to solidify the legal right of prediction markets to offer not only trading contracts involving sports but also matters of global and domestic politics. While previous CFTC regulations prohibited prediction markets from offering event contracts that reference “terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or any activity that is unlawful under state or federal law,” President Donald Trump’s hand-picked CFTC Chair Michael Selig has largely embraced a looser regulatory prediction markets environment.
Selig’s CFTC has said that monitoring prediction markets for insider activity largely resides with the licensees. Torres is asking the CFTC to force Polymarket to disclose information linked to the suspicious accounts.
Recent reporting reveals that a group of newly created accounts on the prediction market Polymarket placed highly specific, well-timed bets that the United States and Iran would reach a ceasefire on April 7, despite a lack of public indicators suggesting such an outcome. Notably, this trading activity occurred at a time when the President’s public rhetoric signaled escalation rather than de-escalation, further underscoring the improbability that these trades were based solely on publicly available information,” Torres wrote Selig.
Torres asked the CFTC chair to initiate a comprehensive review and investigation into the trading activity in question, obtain and analyze platform-level data linked to the accounts, and to keep Congress and the public informed of any findings.
Transparency Needed
Torres says the perfectly timed trades on the ceasefire could only be a matter of “sophisticated speculation,” but with the rapid rise and popularity of prediction markets, with their odds now often referenced by mainstream news organizations, transparency in the innovative markets is needed.
“Failure to act risks undermining confidence in both emerging financial technologies and the broader integrity of US markets,” Torres said.
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