FOIA docs: the CFTC launched at least three previously unreported investigations into Polymarket trading, including about Google's 2025 Year in Search Ranking
The agency that oversees prediction markets has investigated Polymarket trades on Biden pardons and the Iran war …
Context & Ripple Effects
Polymarket’s regulatory arc has been uneven: the DOJ and CFTC reportedly ended Biden-era probes in 2025, but sources said the CFTC began an extensive new Polymarket investigation in 2026. The FOIA records add specific trading matters to that broader scrutiny.
The inquiries also land after a study identified trading patterns consistent with nonpublic information on Polymarket, while U.S. authorities had sought information from both Polymarket and Kalshi over Iran- and Venezuela-related wagers.
First-order effects
- The CFTC’s documented inquiries put Polymarket’s handling of trading around Biden pardons, Iran-related events and Google’s 2025 Year in Search ranking under more defined regulatory examination.
- Polymarket must contend with scrutiny focused not only on its access controls but also on whether particular event markets enabled trading tied to potentially nonpublic information.
Second-order effects
- Kalshi and other event-contract platforms face a clearer compliance benchmark: authorities’ earlier information requests to both major platforms show that sensitive geopolitical and political markets draw attention across the category.
- Market operators have greater incentive to strengthen surveillance and market-design controls, because the regulatory question is extending from whether contracts are offered to how traders may use them.
Third-order effects
- If the CFTC continues pursuing trade-specific inquiries, prediction-market legitimacy will depend increasingly on demonstrable market-integrity controls rather than on the novelty or popularity of individual contracts.
- The category risks splitting between platforms able to absorb sustained regulatory oversight and those whose compliance systems cannot support politically or geopolitically sensitive markets.
The trend: Prediction markets are moving from a jurisdictional debate toward continuous supervision of market design, participant access and suspicious trading behavior.