Hollywood Firms Restrict Staff Bets on Entertainment Outcomes

Hollywood studios and production companies have instructed staff to stay out of prediction markets tied to entertainment business decisions, adding workplace controls around information employees may learn before it becomes public.

Restrictions cover contracts tied to studio earnings, casting and release dates. Penske Media’s handbook also lists award nominations, casting choices, production timelines and release dates. The policies bar employees from giving nonpublic information to friends or family members who might wager on it. One unidentified company has opened an anonymous reporting line where workers can flag suspected bets by colleagues.

An event contract can pay based on a specified event or value, including corporate earnings. That creates a way to wager on outcomes that entertainment workers may encounter in their jobs before they become public.

Kalshi bars trading on a contract by anyone who has material nonpublic information about the event tied to it. Polymarket’s integrity rules also prohibit trades based on confidential information from a person who owes a duty of trust or confidence and would themselves be barred from trading on it.

Kalshi’s disciplinary committee ruled that Artem Kaptur breached exchange rules in August and September 2025 while trading contracts about YouTube creator ‘Mr. Beast.’ In a decision dated Feb. 25, 2026, the committee suspended him for two years and assessed $20,397.58, including $5,397.58 in disgorged gains and a $15,000 penalty.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced charges May 27, 2026, against Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo. Prosecutors alleged he risked about $2,754,092 on Polymarket trades involving Google information from about Oct. 15 to Dec. 4, 2025, and made about $1.2 million in profits.

Joshua Mitts, a Columbia University law professor who studies prediction markets, said: “With blockchain-based trading, it can be basically impossible [to catch a bettor] if you know how to use a mixer correctly.”

Separately from the Hollywood policies, lawmakers have asked Kalshi and Polymarket about protections for election-market trading. Their inquiry cited accounts of campaign staff betting before unreleased polling; those examples did not establish a regulatory finding of illegal insider trading. The lawmakers’ questions about election-market controls concerned election trading.