The legislative initiative responds to concerns that election betting could lead to the manipulation of results.
Representatives Jamie Raskin and Andrea Salinas today (19 December) introduced the Ban Gambling on Elections Act, a legislative effort to prohibit wagering on US elections. The move addresses growing concerns over the impact of political betting on election integrity and public trust in the democratic process.
This bill, a house counterpart to Senator Jeff Merkley’s legislation, aims to amend the Commodity Exchange Act to explicitly ban election betting.
Raskin emphasised the importance of maintaining public confidence in the electoral system. He described election betting as a practice that reduces democratic participation to a profit-driven gamble. Raskin said democracy requires transparent and trustworthy voting processes. He suggested that election betting creates a system clouded by betting odds and the influence of wagers.
This kind of betting “undermines” democrac..