In the early hours of February 28th, the U.S. and Israeli military began an unprovoked air strike against Iran after weeks of tense posturing. Sources indicate these plans had been in development for months, despite occurring in the middle of nuclear deal negotiations to replace the one Donald Trump tore up in 2017. Civilian death tolls continue to rise and the scope of this grotesquery has yet to reveal itself. But if you put your chips on the right Polymarket page, you’re in the money.
As a new, unfathomable war in the Middle East emerges, Polymarket betters are hoping to fathom enough for a jackpot. The gambling platform, which lets you bet anonymously on anything from basketball games to bombing campaigns, has been an unending source of controversy. Justifying letting the world wager on mass death, Polymarket claims they also act as a public service, an “unbiased forecast” for people to rely on.
At the top of the betting pages regarding Iran, Polymarket has posted an editorial note:
“The promise of prediction markets is to harness the wisdom of the crowd to create accurate, unbiased forecasts for the most important events to society,” says Polymarket. “That ability is particularly invaluable in gut-wrenching times like today. After discussing with those directly affected by the attacks, who had dozens of questions, we realized that prediction markets could give them the answers they needed in ways TV news and 𝕏 could not.”
It goes without saying that the people who are eagerly wagering on human suffering are, in fact, very biased. The site naturally attracts a certain set of online person, whose sway or skin in the game do not reflect reality. Even if Newsweek believes the gambler’s instinct on matters like the 2025 Canadian federal election, the Pierre Poilievre–sympathetic crowd did not prevent him from not only failing to become the prime minister, but even from failing to hold on to his own seat in parliament. To spell things out even more clearly, Polymarket betters were in revolt after wagers on whether Sam Altman or Elon Musk would be crowned TIME’s Person of the Year award lost on a technicality.
While know-nothings are unreliable sources, the other obvious issue with platforms like Polymarket are gamblers who know too much. Since the trend emerged, professional sports leagues are struggling to keep up with online betting scandals, such as Shohei Ohtani wagering on, uh, himself. Only a few days ago MrBeast video editor Artem Kaptur was fined by the gambling platform Kalshi for a winning streak based around his own workplace.
If you think there would be stricter security around matters of immense global importance, you just lost another bet. Last June, when Israel previously fired missiles towards Iran, several high-stakes bets from first-time users were placed around the bombing campaign. The Guardian believes these bets were made by people in the know, capable of predicting these horrors with insider information.
The proliferation of betting is bad enough, but the potential for anonymous betting on sites like Polymarket raises insidious stakes. Bets placed on the attacks against Iran have already swelled up on the site’s front page, pushing the evergreen “Will the US confirm that aliens exist?” thread to the fifth row. The existing financial incentives to unleash war on the Middle East, from weapons manufacturing in the U.K. to resource grabbing in the region, are a revolting reality. Giving anonymous high rollers even more windfall is insane. The only thing predictable hereon is suffering.
