Suspicious wagers on the US-Israel war in Iran are creating huge windfalls and raising concerns among lawmakers

Sixteen bets made $100,000 accurately predicting the timing of the US airstrikes against Iran on 27 February. Later, a single user would make over $550,000 after betting that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would topple, just moments before his assassination by Israeli forces. On 7 April, right before Donald Trump announced a temporary ceasefire with Iran, traders bet $950m that oil prices would come down. They did.

These bets and other well-timed wagers accurately predicted the precise timing of major developments in the US-Israel war with Iran, creating huge windfalls and raising concerns among lawmakers and experts over potential insider trading.

Betting – once largely siloed to sporting events – has now spread to include contracts on news events where insider information could give some traders an advantage.

The proliferation of online betting markets like Polymarket and Kalshi has allowed bets on virtually any news event. It’s also easier than ever to buy commodity derivatives like oil futures, where traders gamble on what the price of oil will be in the future.

I think it would be insulting to point out what’s going on here, so I won’t.

  • its_me_xiphos@beehaw.org
    0·
    2 days ago

    I am conviced this is money laundering and polymarket is the middle man. Corruption and treason are there, sure, but this has the makings of a classic front operation to clean money.

    Its a tech bro Silk Road for Authoritarian Dick Heads.

  • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    3 days ago

    Honestly, $1billion is a surprisingly-low number/estimate from what I’ve been reading. Did they only COUNT trades by poor people? … or just the specific trades made as close as possible to the exact right moment?

    There’s always going to be a “correct” trade made closer than any other to the right time, so this claim attached to such a low number seems like a distraction-at-best. The hundred-or-thousand-best trades for each event will show us several orders of magnitude more graft.

  • Che Banana@beehaw.org
    0·
    3 days ago

    Would be amazing if poly market and the like we’re Chinese honey pots designed to give them an advantage vs. US Policy. so they get all the advance notice due to the insider betting.