North Carolina Executive Order Bans Insider Betting by State Workers

Governor Josh Stein has signed an executive order that bars North Carolina state employees from using insider knowledge to place bets on prediction markets. 

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Platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi allow wagers on outcomes ranging from sports contests to government decisions, and Stein said the move was necessary to protect public trust. 

“When people use non-public information they have gained at work for unfair gain, we run into trouble,” he explained. “People need to have faith that the public servants are working on their behalf, not leveraging their knowledge unfairly to win a bet and make money.”

The order builds on the North Carolina State Ethics Act, which already prohibits insider trading by public servants. Stein stressed that he has no evidence of state employees engaging in such activity, but he believes the measure will reassure residents.  

“To be clear, I do not have any reason to believe that any state employees are currently making these unethical bets,” he said, according to NC Newsline. “I don’t expect the executive order will impact their daily lives, but what it will do is increase the public’s confidence that we work for them.”

The governor pointed to recent national incidents as part of his reasoning. Federal prosecutors revealed last month that a U.S. Army soldier at Fort Bragg made $400,000 by using classified information to bet on the timing of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s removal. 

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Stein said that case, combined with broader national trends and discussions with his staff, pushed him to act. “It’s corrupting people’s faith in the government,” he warned. 

The executive order comes as lawmakers in the state consider further restrictions. Earlier this month, House Democrats introduced a bill to ban all prediction market betting in North Carolina, though the proposal has not yet been scheduled for a hearing. 

North Carolina also joins Wisconsin and New York as states to have issued an executive order banning insider trading on prediction markets. This month also saw Minnesota become the first state to pass a law banning prediction markets outright.

However, the move has since seen the state sued by both Kalshi and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), both arguing that the financial regulator holds “exclusive jurisdiction” over event contracts traded on federally designated markets under the Commodity Exchange Act.

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