Surveillance pricing roundup & a prediction market ban

May 20, 2026 · 2 min read

There has been some movement on surveillance pricing (i.e., algorithmic price discrimination) bans in the United States. In late March, we talked about the Colorado House advancing a bill to ban the practice. A recent article from CalMatters summarizes some of the progress that has been made since then:

  • The Colorado legislature passed the aforementioned surveillance pricing ban.
  • Maryland banned surveillance pricing for groceries, the first state to do so.
  • The Connecticut legislature passed a surveillance pricing ban.
  • The California Legislature voted to advance a surveillance pricing ban.

It remains to be seem how these bans will actually be enacted, as roughly half of states consider bills to regulate the practice. In April, Canada’s minor New Democratic Party introduced a motion to ban surveillance pricing.

On to prediction markets. First, chain analysis firm Bubblemaps appears to have identified an individual or group making millions betting on US military actions:

Nine connected Polymarket accounts have raked in more than $2.4 million betting almost exclusively on U.S. military actions […] Across more than 80 bets, the accounts had a 98% win rate, even as many wagers were made when the odds of winning were low

Minnesota has also become the first US state to pass a law banning prediction markets. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has sued Minnesota to stop their prediction market ban, creating a legal showdown likely to set precedent for future bills. The federal regulator argues the state lacks the authority to regulate prediction markets and specifically mentions the restriction on agricultural trading on weather-related contracts that farmers uses to hedge against risk. The NPR article mentioned an updated version of the bill allowing trading on the weather, but I’m not sure what the status of that is given that the CFTC specifically mentioned this objection in their release yesterday.

Climate trends are also an allowed category for the much more limited prediction markets coming to Canada, where such markets are generally considered illegal.