Polymarket refers two midterm election cases to CFTC

Polymarket has investigated dozens of bets on its midterm election markets for possible insider trading and referred at least two cases to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the company's head of global intelligence and investigations, Shana Bautista, disclosed in an interview with NPR on Monday.

The referrals come from a new surveillance system that Bautista says generates hundreds of alerts a day. The system draws on campaign finance records, crypto and banking data, Federal Election Commission filings, and social media posts, cross-referencing trader activity against who might hold non-public information about a race.

Investigators flagged accounts with unusually heavy trading concentration and identified shared device IDs used across multiple wallets. On the US-regulated platform, where traders are identity-verified, matching an account to a campaign donor list or staffer directory is direct. On the international platform, investigators begin with a wallet address and follow onchain fund flows.

Bautista joined Polymarket in June 2026 from the FBI. Her team numbers 16. The platform has previously referred more than 100 cases to law enforcement agencies.