US midterm prediction-market trading reaches $133m by 10 August

The CFTC’s enforcement director David Miller said policing fraud, abuse and manipulation in prediction markets is an agency priority. He said the agency has investigated and may have open investigations involving candidates trading on contracts tied to their own elections, but declined to discuss specific midterm cases. Two separate insider-trading cases involving prediction-market trades remain pending, and both defendants deny wrongdoing.

Insider trading in prediction markets ranks among the enforcement priorities of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to David Miller, the agency's director of enforcement. Miller, who took the enforcement division post this year after CFTC Chairman Michael Selig appointed him, said his division's focus is on fraud, abuse and manipulation. He recalled that before his appointment, people were uncertain about whether insider trading and market manipulation rules and laws reached prediction markets.