Polymarket Says It Investigated Dozens of Midterm Election Bets

Polymarket has examined dozens of bets tied to the Nov. 3 midterms, and the company is using a new surveillance system to monitor election trading ahead of the vote.

Shana Bautista, who leads global intelligence and investigations at Polymarket, said the company had examined dozens of bets tied to the 2026 U.S. midterms. She did not give an exact count or name specific bets.

Bautista did not identify a particular race, contract or trading pattern involved in the investigations.

A 16-person investigations unit is using new monitoring tools as the vote approaches. The system draws on social media, Federal Election Commission records, cryptocurrency companies, banking partners, statistical models and other public material. Bautista said it collects gigabytes of data per user but did not give a more exact amount.

She described a high volume of alerts: “We’re getting hundreds of alerts a day,” Bautista said. The system’s alert criteria and thresholds were not disclosed, and no outcomes for the election-related investigations were provided.

Polymarket operates a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-designated exchange for U.S. users that requires identity verification. Its separate international platform bars users in the United States and other restricted jurisdictions. The international venue is noncustodial, with trades recorded on a public blockchain.

Polymarket’s rules prohibit insider trading and market manipulation. They allow the company to restrict wallets or refer cases to law enforcement. The disclosure comes amid a House inquiry into prediction-market insider-trading risks.

The CFTC said April 23, 2026, that it had brought its first insider-trading case involving an event contract. The agency alleged that an active-duty Army soldier used classified information to trade on Polymarket’s Maduro-related contracts and made more than $404,000 on one contract.

The 2026 U.S. midterm elections are scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 3.