Selig signed three unreported Polymarket investigation orders between May and July

In the final days of the Biden administration, one Polymarket account bet that the outgoing president would hand preemptive pardons to a set of prominent MAGA critics including Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Adam Schiff ^[7]. It cleared more than $300,000 when he did, NPR reported, and the CFTC's order came several weeks after that story ^[6].

An investigation order is what gives CFTC enforcement staff compulsory powers. The pardon order let them take testimony, administer oaths, obtain subpoenas and require the production of documents ^[4]. Wired reported that the documents did not say which trades were under suspicion ^[5].

Two of the three orders were signed within weeks of a press report on the same subject ^[25]. Joseph Konizeski, a former chief trial attorney in the CFTC's division of enforcement, told Wired: "If these investigations are being prompted solely by press reports of potential violations of the Commodities Exchange Act, that's a significant sign of weakness in this regulatory scheme" ^[9]. The agency has been criticized in the second Trump era for its perceived friendliness to the prediction market industry ^[10].

The Google order runs alongside a criminal file. Paul Hayeck, the acting director of the CFTC's department of enforcement, wrote that the agency would look at "additional individuals who may have engaged in insider trading related to Google's 2025 Year in Search Ranking," and that the work is separate from the pending case against Michele Spagnuolo, a Google engineer accused of insider trading ^[12][13]. Google declined to comment and pointed Wired to a June statement that Spagnuolo was no longer with the company ^[14]. SDNY and the CFTC did not respond to Wired's requests for comment ^[15].

Polymarket insider trading investigations have produced two arrests so far, including a US special forces officer arrested in April ^[24]. The company's flagship platform was banned from the US in 2022 and allowed back with a narrower US-regulated version in late 2025 ^[18]. Its recent round, led by Donald Trump Jr.'s venture firm 1789 Capital, valued it at $21 billion, and the CFTC is also reportedly investigating Polymarket itself ^[19][17].

The comparison is Kalshi, which has referred at least 32 cases to the CFTC, according to the New York Times ^[20]. When George Santos broke Kalshi's market manipulation rules over a contract on whether he would attend Trump's 2026 State of the Union address, the exchange fined him just over $71,000 and issued its first lifetime ban ^[22]. The CFTC fined him $35,000 for the same behavior ^[21]. He was not criminally charged ^[22]. Kalshi's fine was about twice the regulator's ^[23].

Users trade on what they know, and in this record outsiders described the trades first ^[25]. If you run a venue where some users know more than others, go back over the last four patterns your surveillance flagged and check two things: whether your team or an outsider saw each one first, and whether anyone made a referral.