The way US politicians talk about their country, you’d be forgiven for thinking that American society is a business. And the way they buy and sell shares, you’d be forgiven for thinking Congress is less a deliberative body for crafting laws than an extension of the stock market.

In spite of a pair of insider trading scandals that cost Georgia’s Republican senators their seats at the start of last year, Congressional gambling on the share market actually increased in 2021, according to a year-end report issued this week by investment watchdog Unusual Whales, comprising more than $400 million worth of transactions. What’s more, members of both parties in each chamber of Congress averaged higher-than-market returns for the year, other than Senate Republicans, who performed just below the market average.

The biggest jump came from stock options, devices that give investors the right to later buy or sell a stock before a particular date, an investment vehicle that reached record popularity in 2021, but tends to favor more experienced and wealthier investors. Members of Congress traded a total of $140 million worth of options last year, more than five times the amount in 2020, according to the report, which is based on all the financial disclosure forms between December 1, 2020 and December 22 of last year.