SUSPICIOUS TIMING

Prediction Markets Surged With Bets Just Before Iran Ceasefire

More than $170 million was bet on a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran just before it was announced.

Hundreds of millions of dollars were moved through prediction markets as bettors put money on the U.S. and Iran coming to a ceasefire on Tuesday.

In total, more than $170 million was bet on the event, marking it as one of the largest wagers on geopolitics since betting markets emerged, Bloomberg reported.

A SURE BET?

Polymarket Defends Profiting Off War Amid Suspicious Wins

Daysia Tolentino

Several bets were placed just before the ceasefire was announced by newly made, anonymous accounts on Polymarket, which has only further raised concerns about insider activity on prediction markets.

Blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain spotlighted three accounts that made more than $480,000 in profits by betting on a ceasefire by April 7, and then selling that at a high price.

Most traders will be forced to wait for their payout for two days, as the final result of the “ceasefire” bet is under dispute. It’s highlighting another problem with the prediction markets, as real-world events aren’t always a simple answer, as the yes-or-no bets make them out to be.

Since the end of last year, more than $529 million had been traded on predictions of when the U.S. would strike Iran next after striking its nuclear facilities in June, the New York Times reported. That includes several Polymarket accounts that made bets right before the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran on Feb. 28.

Prediction markets have seen web visits skyrocket since Trump launched his unauthorized war in Iran over a month ago.

Polymarket saw more than 45.3 million web visits in March, according to estimates from Similarweb. That’s up 13 percent from the 40 million web visits the site saw during the 2024 presidential election, which was its most-trafficked month until March.

Kalshi, another popular prediction market, also saw web traffic skyrocket in March with over 13 million web visits, nearly doubling its November 2024 record of 7.1 million visits.

MONEY WHERE HIS MOUTH IS

Trump's Rambling Speeches Are Now a Betting Category

Julia Ornedo

There is a growing push in Congress to rein in the prediction markets and give them more federal oversight.

This week, seven House Democrats demanded in a letter sent to the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that the agency tighten its control over the markets, especially after Polymarket allowed bettors to put money on the fate of two members of the military shot down over Iran last week.

“It is morally corrupt and completely unacceptable for these platforms to allow people to bet on whether American service members live or die,” Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton said in a statement. “This is not a game. The CFTC has the authority to stop this, and we want to know why it hasn’t.”

Polymarket said the market was on the site erroneously, asserting that it “slipped through our internal safeguards.”

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