4 ms·

Allegations of insider trading over prediction-market bets tied to Iran conflict

97 points by paulpauper 8mo ago

instagib 8mo ago
“all fees would be refunded to users who participated in these markets, and that positions from before his death would be cashed out at the last-traded price.”
- mikercampbell 8mo ago
  I know it’s cliche, but I hate this timeline. For a good while there, the headlines went from “oniony” to “sim-city news headline flavor text” to “I can’t believe I share a finite existence with the people being discussed”
  - mlinhares 8mo ago
    Same. I also wonder why would anyone take the other side on stuff like this, this is clearly to incite insider traders, so either there's a lot of stupid people out there willing to part with their money or this is a very efficient money laundering scheme. Or both.
  - torben-friis 8mo ago
    I’m seriously contemplating blocking the news completely. It’s not like me being informed has any influence anyway, now that belief can be manufactured to such an extent. Might as well lower my blood pressure.
    - lotsofpulp 8mo ago
      Skip the technical blocking step and internalize the fact that it is pretty much all irrelevant to your (average person’s) day to day life. Ideally, then even knowing it won’t affect your blood pressure. And the fact is, do you even have reason to believe the claims are true? I am commenting in this thread to pass time, but I assume there is a such a high chance the linked article is not true, or at least has a hidden agenda, such that it should be ignored or treated as entertainment. Could be product placement, could be completely manufactured rage-bait, who knows, and more importantly, I have no reason to care.
nibman 8mo ago
[dead]
georgehotz 8mo ago
There's no such thing as "insider trading" on prediction markets. Are you telling me people with secret knowledge profited by making correct predictions? That's the whole point of prediction markets! Provide accurate information = get paid. It doesn't matter where the information came from, as long as it's correct.
- bdangubic 8mo ago
  I bet I’ll punch you in a mouth and then I punch you in a mouth and collect a billion dollars
  - georgehotz 8mo ago
    Who took the other side of that bet? I sure didn't. Participants in a market should be well aware that other participants can alter the outcome and bet accordingly.
    - bdangubic 8mo ago
      For example, In my comment replace “I” with “Trump” and replace punch with “started another war” We can go on and on (I can give you 7 million other examples too, this is easy one), the entire prediction market is meant for idiots to give their money to non-idiots that are rigging the whole thing (without any regulation).
      - collingreen 8mo ago
        That's roughly correct though? Like the alleged point is exactly that - provide an incentive to establish true information earlier than otherwise. If you view prediction markets like that it's only weird to see people taking the other side with no information (I was going to say "like bar bets" but that's the same kind of thing! Don't bet on things you know nothing about if you hate losing money!)
    - QuadmasterXLII 8mo ago
      If some addled gambling addict is dumb enough to take the bet, it’s their dollars and your mouth.
muzani 8mo ago
So I guess the new war heuristic is pizza and polymarket.
khazhoux 8mo ago
Why are people saying the attacks were a surprise? It was widely reported the day before that embassies were told to clear out “now!”
- rtkwe 8mo ago
  The signs it was possibly soon were pretty strong it's the exact day that wasn't really known.
  - khazhoux 8mo ago
    > US ambassador to Israel tells embassy staff if they want to leave they ‘should do so TODAY’ https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/27/middleeast/us-embassy-israel-non-essential-staff-intl https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/27/middleeast/us-embassy-israel-... Friday ^^
    - mr_00ff00 8mo ago
      Maybe slightly unrelated, Would this not heavily tip off Iran that an attack was coming? Surely that’s easy for Iran to hear about. It seems weird to know the attack was coming and yet their leader still gets killed.
      - burnerRhodov2 8mo ago
        And what could they do about it? Khamenei has been in hiding since we started moving our armada to centcom after maduro
    - rtkwe 8mo ago
      That's definitely in the soon camp but I've also seen quite a few of those notices come and go without strikes happening too and rarely the day before, that's not really enough time to get out even if you wanted to.
- adampunk 8mo ago
  If it was so obvious, how come you didn’t make a half milion dollars? More generally, if it was so obvious how come the odds were so long? If it were so obvious that winning required no insider knowledge the odds should be better.
rmm78 8mo ago
[flagged]
- MathMonkeyMan 8mo ago
  And how noisy it can get! I hope that things go as well as they can for Iran.
ardanur 8mo ago
Polymarket is effectively an assassination auction list, you just need to find out which low likelihood resolutions can be swayed by someone's death. But you would need to have money to start which is something aspiring assassins aren't likely to have. And you would also need the skills to launder cryptocurrencies effectively. This is also true with traditional stock markets, except that laundering real money is much harder to do alone. In the real world an assassin can't really involve more people as those people would realize they are loose ends since they have a get-out-of-jail card in turning on you. The markets could get ahead of this by stipulating that a resolution via murder will always lead to resolution at prices at a time prior to the death. This would technically incentivize a potential assassin to commit a deniable murder, but if they succeed it won't be the market's [PR] problem.
- Rapzid 8mo ago
  > will always lead to resolution at prices at a time prior to the death But there might be an incentive to freeze the price? I think polymarkets should be banned.
  - hedora 8mo ago
    "I bet X will not be assassinated on this date in this way" financial products were the primary reason polymarkets were banned over a century ago. No idea if they've somehow been legalized as a rider to a 10,000 page appropriations bill, or if they're already illegal in the US.
    - Rapzid 8mo ago
      There is just something about it that feels off about these prediction markets. Like there is no end to the terrible incentives and negative externalities. Personally I don't like banning vices. Regulation is much better. So I always use the ban on selling organs to anchor the "yeah, sometimes things just need to be banned" side. Online gambling in general, but particularly these prediction markets, just really don't sit right. I can see perhaps how gaming gambling could be effectively regulated(I don't believe it is currently), but these prediction markets..
fourseventy 8mo ago
prediction markets need to be illegal in the USA, its total insanity.
- mr_00ff00 8mo ago
  You could argue that certain prediction markets are better than the alternative. Maybe not for this, but take sports betting. People taking sides against each other means the losers and winners are individuals. Meanwhile sports betting is growing but the winners are “the house”, the companies.
  - xboxnolifes 8mo ago
    The problem with prediction markets is not who wins, its the incentives that lead to who wins.
    - mr_00ff00 8mo ago
      Well right, so like I said, in sports that’s a good thing
      - xboxnolifes 8mo ago
        Even in sports it's not a good thing, but the consequences tend to be limited only to game outcomes. Nobody wants teams throwing matches because their players bet on the loss, but that's nothing compared to government actions being influenced by prediction-market bets.
  - IncreasePosts 8mo ago
    Parimutuel betting is a thing, especially in horse racing. There's no reason that it couldn't be played in place of fixed odds betting except that it seems that the consumers don't want it.
ChrisArchitect 8mo ago
Related: A new Polymarket account made over $500k betting on the U.S. strike against Iran https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47209773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47209773
sherr 8mo ago
According to the Economist recently [1], Israel recently caught a couple of men who bet on the timing of the Iran attacks last year : "Last summer one “ricosuave666” won more than $150,000 on Polymarket, a betting platform. Their true identity was not clear, but the source of the winnings was: ricosuave666 had bet, with suspicious accuracy, on the precise timing of Israel’s attacks on Iran." So, these people can be found. Overall however, the magazine does not think that these markets should have a blanket ban. [1] https://archive.is/W8Ga8 https://archive.is/W8Ga8 (Prediction markets are rife with insider betting)
7777777phil 8mo ago
This is the third major case in about three months. Before the Iran bets there was a suspected Google insider who made $1.15M on Polymarket (22 of 23 correct bets in 24 hours) and Israeli soldiers criminally charged for monetizing classified intelligence on event contracts. Textbook Akerlof: without enforcement the adverse selection spiral kills these markets before they get a chance to prove useful. I tracked all three cases here: https://philippdubach.com/posts/the-absolute-insider-mess-of-prediction-markets/ https://philippdubach.com/posts/the-absolute-insider-mess-of...

97 points by paulpauper 8mo ago

“all fees would be refunded to users who participated in these markets, and that positions from before his death would be cashed out at the last-traded price.”

mikercampbell 8mo ago
I know it’s cliche, but I hate this timeline. For a good while there, the headlines went from “oniony” to “sim-city news headline flavor text” to “I can’t believe I share a finite existence with the people being discussed”
- mlinhares 8mo ago
  Same. I also wonder why would anyone take the other side on stuff like this, this is clearly to incite insider traders, so either there's a lot of stupid people out there willing to part with their money or this is a very efficient money laundering scheme. Or both.
- torben-friis 8mo ago
  I’m seriously contemplating blocking the news completely. It’s not like me being informed has any influence anyway, now that belief can be manufactured to such an extent. Might as well lower my blood pressure.
  - lotsofpulp 8mo ago
    Skip the technical blocking step and internalize the fact that it is pretty much all irrelevant to your (average person’s) day to day life. Ideally, then even knowing it won’t affect your blood pressure. And the fact is, do you even have reason to believe the claims are true? I am commenting in this thread to pass time, but I assume there is a such a high chance the linked article is not true, or at least has a hidden agenda, such that it should be ignored or treated as entertainment. Could be product placement, could be completely manufactured rage-bait, who knows, and more importantly, I have no reason to care.

nibman 8mo ago

[dead]

georgehotz 8mo ago

There's no such thing as "insider trading" on prediction markets. Are you telling me people with secret knowledge profited by making correct predictions? That's the whole point of prediction markets! Provide accurate information = get paid. It doesn't matter where the information came from, as long as it's correct.

bdangubic 8mo ago
I bet I’ll punch you in a mouth and then I punch you in a mouth and collect a billion dollars
- georgehotz 8mo ago
  Who took the other side of that bet? I sure didn't. Participants in a market should be well aware that other participants can alter the outcome and bet accordingly.
  - bdangubic 8mo ago
    For example, In my comment replace “I” with “Trump” and replace punch with “started another war” We can go on and on (I can give you 7 million other examples too, this is easy one), the entire prediction market is meant for idiots to give their money to non-idiots that are rigging the whole thing (without any regulation).
    - collingreen 8mo ago
      That's roughly correct though? Like the alleged point is exactly that - provide an incentive to establish true information earlier than otherwise. If you view prediction markets like that it's only weird to see people taking the other side with no information (I was going to say "like bar bets" but that's the same kind of thing! Don't bet on things you know nothing about if you hate losing money!)
  - QuadmasterXLII 8mo ago
    If some addled gambling addict is dumb enough to take the bet, it’s their dollars and your mouth.

muzani 8mo ago

So I guess the new war heuristic is pizza and polymarket.

khazhoux 8mo ago

Why are people saying the attacks were a surprise? It was widely reported the day before that embassies were told to clear out “now!”

rtkwe 8mo ago
The signs it was possibly soon were pretty strong it's the exact day that wasn't really known.
- khazhoux 8mo ago
  > US ambassador to Israel tells embassy staff if they want to leave they ‘should do so TODAY’ https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/27/middleeast/us-embassy-israel-non-essential-staff-intl https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/27/middleeast/us-embassy-israel-... Friday ^^
  - mr_00ff00 8mo ago
    Maybe slightly unrelated, Would this not heavily tip off Iran that an attack was coming? Surely that’s easy for Iran to hear about. It seems weird to know the attack was coming and yet their leader still gets killed.
    - burnerRhodov2 8mo ago
      And what could they do about it? Khamenei has been in hiding since we started moving our armada to centcom after maduro
  - rtkwe 8mo ago
    That's definitely in the soon camp but I've also seen quite a few of those notices come and go without strikes happening too and rarely the day before, that's not really enough time to get out even if you wanted to.
adampunk 8mo ago
If it was so obvious, how come you didn’t make a half milion dollars? More generally, if it was so obvious how come the odds were so long? If it were so obvious that winning required no insider knowledge the odds should be better.

rmm78 8mo ago

[flagged]

MathMonkeyMan 8mo ago
And how noisy it can get! I hope that things go as well as they can for Iran.

ardanur 8mo ago

Polymarket is effectively an assassination auction list, you just need to find out which low likelihood resolutions can be swayed by someone's death. But you would need to have money to start which is something aspiring assassins aren't likely to have. And you would also need the skills to launder cryptocurrencies effectively. This is also true with traditional stock markets, except that laundering real money is much harder to do alone. In the real world an assassin can't really involve more people as those people would realize they are loose ends since they have a get-out-of-jail card in turning on you. The markets could get ahead of this by stipulating that a resolution via murder will always lead to resolution at prices at a time prior to the death. This would technically incentivize a potential assassin to commit a deniable murder, but if they succeed it won't be the market's [PR] problem.

Rapzid 8mo ago
> will always lead to resolution at prices at a time prior to the death But there might be an incentive to freeze the price? I think polymarkets should be banned.
- hedora 8mo ago
  "I bet X will not be assassinated on this date in this way" financial products were the primary reason polymarkets were banned over a century ago. No idea if they've somehow been legalized as a rider to a 10,000 page appropriations bill, or if they're already illegal in the US.
  - Rapzid 8mo ago
    There is just something about it that feels off about these prediction markets. Like there is no end to the terrible incentives and negative externalities. Personally I don't like banning vices. Regulation is much better. So I always use the ban on selling organs to anchor the "yeah, sometimes things just need to be banned" side. Online gambling in general, but particularly these prediction markets, just really don't sit right. I can see perhaps how gaming gambling could be effectively regulated(I don't believe it is currently), but these prediction markets..

fourseventy 8mo ago

prediction markets need to be illegal in the USA, its total insanity.

mr_00ff00 8mo ago
You could argue that certain prediction markets are better than the alternative. Maybe not for this, but take sports betting. People taking sides against each other means the losers and winners are individuals. Meanwhile sports betting is growing but the winners are “the house”, the companies.
- xboxnolifes 8mo ago
  The problem with prediction markets is not who wins, its the incentives that lead to who wins.
  - mr_00ff00 8mo ago
    Well right, so like I said, in sports that’s a good thing
    - xboxnolifes 8mo ago
      Even in sports it's not a good thing, but the consequences tend to be limited only to game outcomes. Nobody wants teams throwing matches because their players bet on the loss, but that's nothing compared to government actions being influenced by prediction-market bets.
- IncreasePosts 8mo ago
  Parimutuel betting is a thing, especially in horse racing. There's no reason that it couldn't be played in place of fixed odds betting except that it seems that the consumers don't want it.

ChrisArchitect 8mo ago

Related: A new Polymarket account made over $500k betting on the U.S. strike against Iran https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47209773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47209773

sherr 8mo ago

According to the Economist recently [1], Israel recently caught a couple of men who bet on the timing of the Iran attacks last year : "Last summer one “ricosuave666” won more than $150,000 on Polymarket, a betting platform. Their true identity was not clear, but the source of the winnings was: ricosuave666 had bet, with suspicious accuracy, on the precise timing of Israel’s attacks on Iran." So, these people can be found. Overall however, the magazine does not think that these markets should have a blanket ban. [1] https://archive.is/W8Ga8 https://archive.is/W8Ga8 (Prediction markets are rife with insider betting)

7777777phil 8mo ago

This is the third major case in about three months. Before the Iran bets there was a suspected Google insider who made $1.15M on Polymarket (22 of 23 correct bets in 24 hours) and Israeli soldiers criminally charged for monetizing classified intelligence on event contracts. Textbook Akerlof: without enforcement the adverse selection spiral kills these markets before they get a chance to prove useful. I tracked all three cases here: https://philippdubach.com/posts/the-absolute-insider-mess-of-prediction-markets/ https://philippdubach.com/posts/the-absolute-insider-mess-of...