White House Warns Staff Against Insider Bets After Iran-Linked Trades

Overview

• The White House Management Office sent a staff-wide ethics email on March 24 that warned employees not to use nonpublic information for bets or trades.
• Reports described hundreds of millions of dollars in oil futures changing hands minutes before the president posted a March 23 pause in strikes on Iran.
• The memo named the prediction platforms Polymarket and Kalshi as areas of concern.
• The White House said it has seen no public evidence that staff placed the trades described in press reports.
• Lawmakers introduced bills to ban war-related betting on prediction markets and to block top officials from trading event contracts.