The bill, informally called the "Death Bets Act," targets platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, two of the largest centralized prediction market platforms accessible to US users. It would write the ban directly into federal statute, superseding the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and its ongoing rulemaking process.

The legislation has no Republican co-sponsors and faces long odds in a GOP-controlled Congress, but its introduction has already intensified scrutiny of an industry that processed $63.5 billion in global blockchain-based prediction market trading volume in 2025, up 302.7% from the year before.

What This Means for Users in Africa and South Asia

The legislative fight is largely framed around US domestic politics, but its practical consequences extend to tens of millions of users outside American borders. Polymarket operates in more than 160 countries. India, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and Pakistan are not on its restricted list, meaning users in those markets currently access the platform freely, often in a legal grey zone where local regulations neither explicitly permit nor prohibit participation. India is also cited alongside Japan and South Korea as having among the largest crypto-native betting user bases outside the United States.

India ranks first globally in grassroots crypto adoption according to Chainalysis's 2025 Geography of Crypto report, with Pakistan placing in the top four. Sub-Saharan Africa received more than $205 billion in on-chain crypto value between July 2024 and June 2025, a 52% increase year over year, underscoring that African users have substantive and growing engagement with these platforms.

Nigeria alone counts an estimated 168.7 million registered bettors across all formats, a figure that reflects a broader African sports betting culture that researchers at TechCabal have described as a natural entry point for prediction market adoption. Kenya accounts for an estimated 58.3 million registered bettors in that same regional picture.

A February 2026 TechCabal report examined how prediction markets could serve as an information layer for African startups, letting founders test assumptions about regulatory timelines or market demand before committing capital. With 54% of African startups failing and $2.2 billion in startup capital lost in 2025 alone, the practical case for accessible forecasting tools is not abstract.

The critical point for non-US users is this: Polymarket and Kalshi are incorporated in the United States and subject to US law regardless of where their users are located. A statutory ban on war and death contracts would remove those markets for everyone on the platform, not just American traders. Decentralized alternatives built on blockchains like Polygon or Arbitrum would remain outside US jurisdictional reach, but they generally require more technical skill to use, carry lower liquidity, and lack the user-friendly interfaces of the major centralized platforms.

What Triggered the Push

The immediate catalyst was a Polymarket account operating under the pseudonym "Magamyman." According to NPR, the account's most prominent winning position was a contract wagering on the death of Iran's supreme leader, generating approximately $553,000 in profit from an initial stake of roughly $87,000. The first related trade was placed 71 minutes before news of the strike became public.

On-chain analysts, who track wallet activity recorded on public blockchains, identified six additional newly-created wallets that collectively netted approximately $1.2 million from correctly predicting a February 28 US strike. All six wallets had been created in February 2026 and had placed bets exclusively on Iran strike timing.

The single Polymarket contract asking "Will the US strike Iran by [date]?" logged $529 million in total trading volume, placing it among the largest markets in the platform's history. Across all Iran-related contracts, combined volume exceeded $679 million.

Senator Schiff framed the stakes in national security terms. "Betting on war and death creates an environment in which insiders can profit off of nonpublic information, our national security is jeopardized, and violence is encouraged," he said.

Both Kalshi and Polymarket have stated they prohibit insider trading and maintain bans on death-related markets. However, military outcome contracts have remained available on both platforms throughout this period, and it is precisely those contracts that the legislation targets. The platforms draw a line between individual death contracts and contracts tied to military or war outcomes. The Death Bets Act would eliminate both categories.

Polymarket archived nuclear detonation contracts after public backlash in early March, but Iran war markets remained active through the same period.

A Conflict of Interest Question

Democratic legislators have also flagged that Donald Trump Jr. holds advisory roles at both Kalshi and Polymarket. Critics argue this connection could reduce political pressure on the current administration to act against the platforms.

The regulatory picture is complicated further by the CFTC itself. Chairman Michael Selig, appointed under the current administration, announced in January 2026 that the agency was withdrawing a 2024 proposed rule that would have banned political and sports event contracts.

Selig directed staff to write new rules establishing "clear, workable standards," stating: "It is time for clear rules and a clear understanding that the CFTC supports lawful innovation in these markets."

The Death Bets Act would override that approach by enshrining specific bans in law rather than leaving them to agency discretion.

What Comes Next

The formal legislation was preceded by a letter from Senator Schiff to CFTC Chair Selig, co-signed by five other Democratic senators, that explicitly called on the Commission to prohibit event contracts involving injury, death, or war. The Death Bets Act followed as an escalation of that demand.

The bill is widely viewed as unlikely to become law in the current congressional session. What it does accomplish is increasing pressure on the CFTC to address the insider trading problem directly and forcing the centralized platforms to make clearer public commitments about what markets they will and will not offer.

Senator Jeff Merkley separately proposed in early March that government officials be prohibited from trading on prediction markets at all, a narrower measure focused specifically on government insiders.

State attorneys general in multiple jurisdictions are also pursuing their own actions, and the question of whether prediction market contracts constitute unlawful gambling under state law may eventually require a Supreme Court ruling. New York's Attorney General has already warned consumers that prediction market platforms lack standard consumer protections, a concrete example of the state-level pressure building alongside the federal legislative push.

For users in Lagos, Mumbai, or Nairobi, the outcome of that legal process in Washington will determine whether they keep access to these platforms at all.