Companies are racing to codify employee rules for betting on prediction markets after high‑profile cases exposed insider‑trading risks. Law firm partner Helena Grannis warned that traditional insider‑trading policies may miss wagers on seemingly trivial data, such as how often a CEO mentions a keyword. Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket now host bets on corporate earnings language, product launches and private valuations.

The total value of contracts traded on these sites jumped to over $29 billion in May, a fourteen‑fold increase from the same month last year, according to crypto data firm Artemis. Prosecutors recently charged a U.S. soldier and a Google engineer with earning $400,000 and $1.2 million respectively on Polymarket bets that relied on confidential information, underscoring regulatory scrutiny.

Firms are responding with a spectrum of policies, from Federated Hermes’ outright ban on any prediction‑market account to SentinelOne’s explicit inclusion of such wagers in its insider‑trading code. Others, like Goldman Sachs and CrowdStrike, rely on existing prohibitions, while non‑profits such as ProPublica have blocked staff betting on any news event. Companies must balance reputational risk with the difficulty of monitoring platforms that lack transparent account statements.