California is joining the crackdown on prediction market insider trading.
“Public service should not be a get-rich-quick scheme,” said Newsom in a statement.
“At a time when Trump’s Washington is riddled with ethical failures and insider profiteering, California is drawing a bright line: If you serve the public as a political appointee, you serve the public—period,” he said, adding that his state wouldn’t “tolerate this kind of corruption.”
The move also prohibits appointees and officials from using inside information to help others—like children, spouses, and business partners—to profit from inside information.
Those types of markets, the lawmakers claim, have been profited on by those close to the Trump administration. Newsom, too, highlighted concerns that those in President Trump’s “orbit are exploiting confidential information for their own personal gain.”
“We shouldn't live in a country where government officials or well-connected people can make money off of secret information that is supposed to be used in the public interest,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) said at the time of the BETS Off Act's introduction.
