Illinois Just Banned State Workers From Trading on Prediction Markets — Here’s the Full List of Governments Doing This Now

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed Executive Order 2026-04 on April 21, 2026, making Illinois one of the most prominent states to take direct action against prediction market participation by government employees. The order prohibits any Illinois state employee, officer, appointee, or board member from using nonpublic information obtained through their official position to participate in prediction markets or event-based contracts — or to assist any other person in doing so. It took effect immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State.

“Prediction markets have rapidly grown into a space where people can bet on real-world events without any oversight, including events people can influence,” Pritzker said in a statement. “This opens the door to insider trading and abuse of confidential information.”

What the Illinois Order Actually Does

The executive order covers all executive branch state agencies and applies regardless of whether the employee actually profits from the trade. Using nonpublic information to participate, or helping someone else do so, is prohibited under the order. Pritzker framed the action as filling a federal gap, specifically calling out the Trump administration’s failure to provide federal oversight of prediction markets.

Illinois already had laws on the books prohibiting the use of confidential information for personal gain in procurement and contracting contexts. This executive order extends those protections into the prediction market space, which Illinois Gaming Board had already declared to be illegal gambling under state law in an October 2025 memorandum. The Pritzker order adds an additional ethics layer focused specifically on insider trading concerns rather than the broader legality question.

A Growing List of Governments Acting

Illinois is part of a rapidly expanding movement. Here is a summary of the governments and officials that have taken concrete steps to restrict prediction market participation by public employees and officials.

At the federal level, the White House warned staffers in March 2026 against making prediction market trades, with spokesman Davis Ingle stating that all federal employees are subject to ethics guidelines that prohibit using nonpublic information for financial benefit. Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts announced in March 2026 that he was banning his congressional staff from participating in prediction market platforms, becoming the first member of Congress to implement an office-wide policy. He told Business Insider that lawmakers in both parties had praised the move. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon has introduced legislation that would ban lawmakers themselves from trading on prediction markets, arguing the ban should start at the top of the food chain with members of Congress.

In January 2026, Representative Ritchie Torres of New York introduced the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act, co-sponsored by more than 28 House Democrats, which would prohibit elected officials, political appointees, and executive branch employees from trading event contracts when they possess material nonpublic information. That bill defined the initial legislative framework at the federal level.

California moved in a parallel direction at the state level, barring gubernatorial appointees from using insider knowledge to profit on prediction markets. The action in Illinois followed, and both are being positioned as responses to inaction at the federal level and to well-publicized incidents involving traders who appeared to have advance knowledge of sensitive government actions.

Why the Momentum Is Building

The trigger for much of this activity was a suspicious Polymarket trade in which an account bet $30,000 that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro would be ousted by January 31, 2026 — a trade that appeared to anticipate a classified U.S. government operation that became public knowledge days later. The White House denied that any staff profited from such trades, but the episode made the vulnerability concrete and put it in front of lawmakers and governors who might otherwise have paid little attention to prediction markets.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission opened a formal rulemaking process on prediction markets in March 2026, with comments due April 30. The CFTC under Chairman Michael Selig has asserted exclusive federal jurisdiction over prediction markets and is pursuing a regulatory framework rather than a blanket shutdown. But that timeline leaves a gap, and state-level action is filling it.

For bettors in Illinois and other states where prediction markets are facing enforcement pressure, the practical impact is still being worked out. State employees and government workers face direct restrictions. Ordinary bettors are not covered by executive orders like Illinois’s, but the broader regulatory environment is tightening in ways that could affect platform availability. The licensed sportsbook market continues to operate under clear, established rules — and right now that stability looks more valuable than it did a year ago.