Is Washington coming for Polymarket’s ‘death markets’? New Senate bill takes aim

The U.S. Senate may be targeting prediction markets with a new legislative proposal that seeks to ban contracts linked to undesirable events such as war, assassination, and individual deaths. This prospective law, termed the DEATH BETS Act and introduced by Senator Adam Schiff, is poised to amend the Commodity Exchange Act and enhance regulatory boundaries for event-trading platforms like Polymarket. The bill prohibits regulated exchanges from listing or clearing contracts tied to violent outcomes or deaths, empowering the CFTC to enforce these new rules. This move comes in response to ethical concerns over incentivizing harmful acts via such markets and follows recent criticism of Polymarket for offering bets on geopolitically sensitive events. Polymarket responded to the backlash by archiving some of its controversial markets. As the bill heads to committee for further discussion, its potential impact has stirred debate within the prediction market community and among legal experts, with implications for how such platforms might operate in the future.