VIDEO: Budzinski Questions CFTC Chairman, Highlights Need to Pass PREDICT Act

Resources / Uncategorized Share on VIDEO: Budzinski Questions CFTC Chairman, Highlights Need to Pass PREDICT Act Apr 16, 2026 Press Uncategorized WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski (IL-13) questioned Michael Selig, Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, during a House Agriculture Committee hearing. She pressed for clarity on how the agency is regulating prediction markets and cryptocurrency, and whether it has the resources needed to keep pace with rapidly evolving financial markets. In March, Congresswoman Budzinski and Congressman Adrian Smith (NE-03) introduced the PREDICT Act , the first bipartisan legislation of its kind to ban senior government officials from participating in insider prediction market trading. Violations of the PREDICT Act would result in a civil penalty equal to 10 percent of the value of the prohibited transaction, as well as full disgorgement of any profits earned, to be paid into the U.S. Treasury. The Congresswoman’s opening remarks can be found below. Her full remarks and questioning can be found HERE . Thank you for being here, Chairman Selig . Right now, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is really in the spotlight because of the role it plays in new and emerging markets—especially prediction markets. At their core, prediction markets can look pretty harmless. People are trading on questions like what song will be number one, or who the next James Bond will be. But that is not where it stops. These markets are also being used to trade on real-world events—government decisions, geopolitical conflicts, even military action. And that is where prediction markets start to raise serious concerns for me. Earlier this year, an article crossed my desk that made that risk very real. Hours before the United States carried out airstrikes on Iran, a group of newly created accounts on Polymarket placed significant bets that those strikes would happen. Six wallets—funded within 24 hours—bet “yes.” And when the strikes happened, they walked away with about $1.2 million in profit. That looks like someone knew what was about to happen—or at the very least, traded like they did. And it is not just a one off event. We are seeing repeated patterns of well-timed, highly profitable bets tied to sensitive global events. That should concern every single one of us. I think the question is pretty simple: how did they know? That’s why I introduced the bipartisan PREDICT Act—to make sure senior government officials – including Members of Congress, senior staff, and Executive and Judiciary branch officials – cannot participate in prediction markets using nonpublic information they gained through their jobs. This bill is straightforward. If you are entrusted with sensitive government information, you cannot turn around and profit off of it. Because there is a clear difference between making an educated guess on what can happen and insider trading. Public servants should not be profiting off privileged information that is entrusted to them by the American people. If we do not draw a clear line here, we are leaving the door wide open to corruption. So Chairman Selig, I want to thank you again for being here today to talk about this important topic, and I look forward to working together to stop insider trading in prediction markets. To hear her line of questioning and Chairman Selig’s responses, click HERE . ### Share on