Polymarket Investigated "Dozens" of Midterm Election Bets, Company Official Says
Polymarket, a platform where people bet on future events, has investigated "dozens" of bets related to the U.S. midterm elections, according to Shana Bautista, the company's head of global intelligence and investigations, as NPR reported on October 27, 2026.
Bautista is a former FBI official and cryptocurrency analyst who joined Polymarket in June. She oversees a team of 16 and a new election surveillance system that monitors bets ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms.
At least two of the company's election-related investigations have been referred to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal regulator.
The surveillance system pulls gigabytes of data on each user. That data comes from social media, Federal Election Commission records, cryptocurrency companies, banking partners, statistical models and other public sources. The Federal Election Commission is the federal agency that oversees campaign finance. The system generates hundreds of alerts per day, Bautista said.
Polymarket runs two versions of its service. Its U.S.-regulated platform requires users to provide their real identities. Polymarket International allows trading anonymously with cryptocurrency.
Polymarket's efforts come as other betting platforms face similar questions. Kalshi, another platform that lets people bet on events, banned and fined a handful of political candidates in April for betting on themselves. In May, Kalshi announced an election surveillance system that uses Federal Election Commission data to block campaign staffers listed by the agency from betting on elections. In July, Kalshi said it had blocked dozens of staffers from trading on elections.
The House Oversight Committee is investigating both Kalshi and Polymarket over their enforcement efforts.
Polymarket has faced federal scrutiny before. In November 2024, a source told Reuters that U.S. criminal and civil authorities were probing the company. At that time, Polymarket was not registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and it had previously settled with the agency.
In August 2026, Reuters reported that Polymarket said it was fully prepared to police trading on its platform ahead of the midterm elections.
The FBI searched the New York City home of Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan as part of a criminal investigation into the election betting platform, according to ABC News.
