9 ms·
Traders placed over $1B in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- hdhdhsjsbdh 6mo agoYet more evidence of the rapid disassembly of the social contract and our collective ethics, aided of course by unregulated tech. If you work for – or are involved in the funding of – these unregulated gambling and insider trading platforms, you should be ashamed of yourself. Your greed and lack of concern for the health of the human world you live in is sickening. You can get bag after bag but it will never fill the void in your soul.
- cyanydeez 6mo agoIsn't it more than the ability to manipulate global markets essentially means we're headed towards a global inflation crisis? No one with critical thinking skills believe Elon's valuations are a rational market concern. But if they _are_ rational, eg, a zimbawean inflation nightmare, then if you're not trying to "escape the permanent underclass" then _you_ are the irrational person. So ignoring all politics, we're really dealing with a zeitgeist of people who think wealth inequality is endless, and the only way to survive is to lobster bucket and YOLO every chance to gamble.
- thot_experiment 6mo agoThis applies to almost everyone working on SaaS; not in all cases, but the absolute majority work on SaaS means creating artificial scarcity in order to extract value from people. It is a fundamentally evil, antisocial, anti human thing to do. If you believe that is okay to restrict access to infinite resources to preserve the status quo you deserve the same place in hell as the people pushing gambling. Don't create artificial scarcity. Don't play zero sum games.
- cmwelsh 6mo agoI’ve never heard “intellectual property” phrased as “artificial scarcity” and it isn’t exactly wrong…
- com2kid 6mo ago> This applies to almost everyone working on SaaS; The original idea behind SaaS is to align the incentives of the customers and the software company. Historically software companies made money on selling upgrades. This meant bug fixes were not a priority, and security fixes were something companies got shamed into doing. SaaS fixes that incentive problem. With reliable ongoing revenue a company can keep software patched and updated and doesn't have to cram a bunch of new shiny marketable features in just to make a huge sale every 3 or 4 years, while engineers try and add whatever bug fixes they can after the shiny new features have been polished off. It also means software companies don't have boom or bust cycles with hiring. Funding stays consistent, and so does staffing. It makes the financials much easier to manage. Companies used to hire a bunch of temp employees in the run up to a release. Ongoing release cycles also led to better software engineering practices. More automated tests, reproducible builds, better version control systems, and a lot more things that we take for granted now days. There are obvious downsides to SaaS as well, but the original idea was good.
- shigawire 6mo ago> almost everyone working on SaaS; not in all cases, but the absolute majority work on SaaS means creating artificial scarcity in order to extract value from people. Maybe this is just my lack of understanding in how most SaaS companies operate... But to me making software that people find valuable and charging them for that is not inherently immoral. Surely that is the majority of cases?
- tredre3 6mo agoPeople like thot_experiment don't believe in intellectual property, period. They believe that everything that is created should be public domain when the cost of replicating it is zero (books, media, software, music, most art). Those people also generally believe that borders and countries shouldn't exist. Whilst I respect their worldview, I have found that it's not worth arguing with this group because they typically refuse to explain how such world would work, handwaving away any problems you'll bring up.
- paulpauper 6mo agoInsider trading exists with stocks too. I mean, if there is a way for people to profit by bending the rules or information asymmetry, someone will find a way.
- CPLX 6mo agoThis is the only reasonable point of view to take on the widespread and obviously unethical outbreak of gambling platforms. The fact that it's downboated and towards the bottom is just a reflection of how far the discourse has fallen. Granted, maybe I should be less surprised given the fact that this is all being posted on the promotional website of a technology-focused private equity fund, but it's disappointing nonetheless.
- arjie 6mo agoThe biggest sums involved appear to be on the oil futures market. That market has existed for a long time (half a century to a century depending on the sophistication you measure). If this is is a novel occurrence it cannot be the platform that 'caused' it. I think it's just that we create useful tools: futures, the pre-emptive pardon, and so on. Then people figure out how to use those tools to enrich themselves in ways we did not anticipate. It's just a question of how we fix our machinery in this cat and mouse game or if it is fixable at all.
- cineticdaffodil 6mo agoNow of cocourse there are bots circling watching for insider trades. Which you can "milk" by pretending to insider trade and then hedging a bet against them. A whole eco system of scoundrels
- paulpauper 6mo agoand then spoofing. Creating fake trades to entice copycats.
- artificialprint 6mo agoYou don't get it, you can make m o n e y with it, with which you can buy a yacht and an expensive car.
- ck2 6mo agoWhat's the statute of limitations on such things? Because it won't be prosecuted by 2029 but could be afterwards Personally I think it's a bigger problem when the President sues his own government for billions and then orders them to pay it out Because -that- is not an official act. It could be prosecuted but no-one will touch it even after 2029
- cbg0 6mo agoUnless somebody snitches there's no real way to prosecute insider trading. You can say you just felt like making a trade, or that you read one of Trump's posts the moment he put it up on Truth Social and you just happened to have the trade ready to go. Unless they're absolute morons, the people doing insider trading for large sums of money will have already built a strong alibi.
- oa335 6mo ago> Unless they're absolute morons, the people doing insider trading for large sums of money will have already built a strong alibi. My theory is they are banking on preemptive presidential pardons in Dec 2028.
- Noaidi 6mo agoTrump already said he will do this. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-plans-to-pardon-everyone-who-has-come-within-200-ft-of-oval-office-before-term-ends-report/ar-AA20CMhR https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-plans-to-pardo... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-pardons-top-aides-b2955583.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
- JumpCrisscross 6mo agoKeep in mind that preëmptive pardons have not been upheld by the courts [1]. [1] https://www.criminallawlibraryblog.com/preemptive-pardons-constitutional-authority-and-real-world-implications/ https://www.criminallawlibraryblog.com/preemptive-pardons-co...
- echelon 6mo agoWhat value do prediction markets give to anyone not in the insider trading class? I predict these will be banned when someone finally uses them as an "assassination market".
- dogtorwoof 6mo agoI would argue that the sole value of prediction markets is to make insider knowledge accessible to the general public, quicker than it normally would. That’s why these platforms saying things like “we will roll out insider trading” is laughable.
- operatingthetan 6mo ago>I would argue that their sole value is to make insider knowledge accessible quicker to the general public. Is anyone using AI to track these audacious and large bets? Seems like you could actually do this to tell which ones are insider info and which are just stupid random bets?
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- OutOfHere 6mo agoI would just count which side of the bet has more bets above the median bet size with a zero or near-zero bet history. Insiders are more likely to use throwaway accounts than are non-insiders. Spoofers may however deter such analysis. AI may not strictly be needed for analysis.
- operatingthetan 6mo agoI haven't actually used the platforms except looking at betting odds for elections. Do they give any tools for looking at past results and analyzing?
- OutOfHere 6mo ago
- beaviskhan 6mo agoYou'd have to be spectacularly stupid to bet on these kinds of things without having insider knowledge, because you ought to know good and damn well by now that the people with insider knowledge are DEFINITELY betting on them.
- paulpauper 6mo agocouldn't you somehow in theory track the order book to if and when insiders are betting and then copy the trade?
- andrepd 6mo agoNot knowing who are the insiders and who is the dumb flow is like the fundamental problem of hft
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- 3eb7988a1663 6mo agoHow is there enough volume to cover the other side of the bet with these minutes-before trades?
- andrepd 6mo agoThe oil market is, to put it mildly, fucking huge
- 3eb7988a1663 6mo agoFor sure, the real trading markets are huge. I mean the betting platforms.
- huorricannes 6mo agothe betting markets offset positions with the real markets. it's all connected
- sieste 6mo agoMaybe a superhuman AI? /s
- mrtksn 6mo agoI wonder if this means that in a true free market betting is actually impossible as extra-gaming structures like those spontaneously emerge. You need centralized regulation to make it work.
- mananaysiempre 6mo agoThe standard argument for prediction markets does not include any kind of fairness in gambling. Rather, the point is precisely to surface insider or otherwise well-founded knowledge of the real odds so they can be available to anyone who wishes to look at the price. (And I do not see how this first-order viewpoint is problematic, precisely. It’s the second-order consequences of people making the currently-considered-unlikely decision in order to cash in on a bet that I have an issue with.)
- reactordev 6mo agoPrediction Markets require insider trading to function... how do people not know this? It's a setup from day one. If you have the knowledge, you're going to cash in, if you don't have the knowledge, you are throwing your money away.
- DANmode 6mo agopotentially, each time.
- UncleMeat 6mo agoI've never seen an ad from either Kalshi or Polymarket that says "don't play if you aren't an insider."
- firebot 6mo agoMost gamblers prescribe to the cost sunk fallacy and keep 'one more time'ing it to bankruptcy. Math wins over your feels every time.
- wslh 6mo agoI would be careful about attributing all of this to ordinary insider trading. Another plausible explanation is that some activity could come from state linked or intelligence adjacent actors, where the goal is not only profit but also testing or exploiting prediction markets as an auxiliary information channel.
- iambateman 6mo agoOccam would disagree.
- wslh 6mo ago[dead]
- OutOfHere 6mo agoThe most Occam-safe explanation is not insider trading but actually hard work in analytics to rapidly surface intelligence from X and other alternative data sources.
- huorricannes 6mo agooccam doesn't work in financial markets. because if it did you would print money by following occam.
- iambateman 6mo agoBut it does work in conspiracy theories which is what we have here.
- reenorap 6mo agoWithout them talking about how much people LOST, this entire article is meaningless. With the advent of 0DTE options which dominate options trading, the fact that the notional number of people who made money makes sense because so many more people have lost money.
- watwut 6mo agoOf course they made money from other traders. But that is precisedly the issue with insider trading - you are taking money from more honest traders.
- jfrbfbreudh 6mo agoYes, someone is on the other side of the losing trade, but how many people (not firms) do you know who write contracts for short term options? I personally don’t know any, and I worked at one of the biggest HFT firms for a few years. The losing side(s) of these positions are heavily hedged, and are happily making money on volume and volatility. (And making record profits this year)
- outlore 6mo agoThere’s a recent Patrick Boyle video which puts it aptly: prediction markets are a wealth transfer from retail investors to trading algorithms and people with security clearances. Anyway, one thing I don’t understand yet is how new markets are created. They aren’t user generated, so how did an “Iran strike” market exist to begin with?
- 1659447091 6mo ago> one thing I don’t understand yet is how new markets are created. They aren’t user generated, so how did an “Iran strike” market exist to begin with? Having the US presidents kids as multimillion dollar investors in the platforms and on the advisory board of one them would be a good place to look
- cwillu 6mo agohttps://help.polymarket.com/en/articles/13364541-how-are-markets-created https://help.polymarket.com/en/articles/13364541-how-are-mar... Users absolutely can propose markets
- Terr_ 6mo agoAlso: Nascent exchanges for paying someone to commit violent or illegal acts.
- _the_inflator 6mo ago[flagged]
- ChrisArchitect 6mo agoRelated: Traders place $760M bet on falling oil ahead of Hormuz announcement https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47812385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47812385
- yalogin 6mo agoIt’s all manipulation and everyone knows it but when the voices are coming from inside the house, who’s going to investigate? If anything every tech company in the whole flow is going to support and add custom flows for them - “to get on their good side”
- le-mark 6mo agoThere’s something deeply wrong with the executive branch controlling law enforcement and who gets prosecuted in the US. Jack Smith had him dead to rights in two cases (read the indictments they are water tight) that his attorney general then dismissed. It’s a travesty. Thank you “let the courts handle it” McConnel.
- Stevvo 6mo agoThese articles always focus on "Yes" bets. An insider betting "No" might get by completely unnoticed.
- int32_64 6mo agoIt's deeply American how so many of these articles about Kalshi or Polymarket frame the issue as something that can be solved on the American end with the stroke of a pen, especially in a multipolar world where American sanctions increasingly fail. These markets are global with global demand and many of the insiders are on the receiving end of American foreign policy. If an Iranian with a starlink sees a b-2 spirit fly over their house that information will find its way to somebody who will profit from that knowledge, it's just part of the new information economy.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> especially in a multipolar world where American sanctions increasingly fail You're claiming the U.S. government is impotent against holding Polymarket to account? > These markets are global The trades in question are bets on Polymarket and Intercontinental Exchange Brent oil futures. These are well within the remit of American law enforcement.
- Mtinie 6mo agoWhy would the U.S. government want to sabotage prediction markets when the chief executive has a vested interest in keeping them legitimate?
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> Why would the U.S. government want to sabotage prediction markets when the chief executive has a vested interest in keeping them legitimate? "Solving" the problem of administration juniors compromising our military for profit doesn't require sabotaging anything. Just the exchanges turning over records.
- int32_64 6mo ago>You're claiming the U.S. government is impotent against holding Polymarket to account? Yes, if US regulators quash Polymarket their lunch will be eaten by a global competitor HQ'd in a country the US can't touch. A lot of the insider weekend trading of oil is happening on hyperliquid, a DEX associated with developers in Singapore, what can the SEC or CFTC do to them?
- tezza 6mo agoWait until they find out how many people place perfectly timed horse racing bets on the winning horse, JUST before the start of the race. 100% of them knew to back the winning horse
- hereme888 6mo agoGood for those who made the money. I would have done so had I had such insider info, as long as it didn't compromise any operation.
- egonschiele 6mo agoDo you not think that that would have a negative impact on the world? or do you not care, or is this "the world is going to hell so I may as well get mine"?
- hereme888 6mo agoIt's an unregulated world of gambling. Like trading DogeCoin. If you had insider knowledge, it was/is legal to trade there as you want.
- egonschiele 6mo agoAh okay, so it's a case of "it's legal so it's fine", and impact or principles don't come into it.
- hereme888 6mo agoUm, yes. If I were certain of a price movement before others, I'd take advantage, and so would you. But you can virtue signal with fake empathy if you'd like.
- low_tech_love 6mo agoAs long as the hordes of losers are not bothered by it enough to ask for fairness in the business, you’re right. Ethics and morals are constructs with the intention of creating a better, more just common existence. If the people in this common existence don’t care, then there is no reason for them not to do it.
- Bud 6mo ago[dead]
- slg 6mo agoSay whatever you want about the merits of prediction markets. But I just don't see a way those benefits outweigh the societal dangers of these constant reminders that people in or close to power can freely profit from their positions in the ways the rest of the population can't. There's always talk about the dangers of disincentivizing job creators, but what happens when a society routinely disincentives job havers in this way? We're just getting a constant barrage of information telling us that if we show up to our job and simply work as we're expected that we're stooges who won't get ahead. You'll need to look for your own individual scheme, ethics be damned, if you just want to keep up with the rest of the population. That's not healthy on an individual level or cumulatively at a societal level.
- colechristensen 6mo agoI think the bigger risk is changing major decisions (like war) based on the profitability of bets. Forget about drone war doctrine, if you're an adversary just place absurdly large bets which incentivize the opposition to do what you want. (i.e. bet so you "lose" the bet when the enemy changes their posture to gain the profit). Politics is already full of these pay to play incentives but now anyone with enough cash can influence world events.
- SJMG 6mo agoThis kind of nation-level hedging has been talked about for years in betting market-aware communities. It's honestly a much better use than fleecing nobodies with insider knowledge.
- stubish 6mo agoWe should be more worried about who placed the losing bets then. Russia, Israel and China having a market for government and military officials to accept their bribes is kind of a bigger story than insiders fleecing gamblers.
- H8crilA 6mo agoThe oil trade structure actually does make sense, because this is how you buy oil, or really any commodity that takes so much space and weight. You order it ahead of time, then if you hold till the contract settles you are allowed to pick it up from the place and in the way designated in the contract specification. In fact you are obliged to pick it up, that's why prices can go negative in exceptional situations. Prediction markets are then just a clean cash-only derivative. Most of the other prediction markets seems rather stupid to me (they are completely detached from any real world activity), other than their prices being a fairly reliable source of information for bystanders.
- ckemere 6mo agoWhy can’t the markets just forbid transactions that happen within 48 hours of resolution?
- gleenn 6mo agoWhat does that solve? Wouldn't the insiders in e.g. the Iran War just have to place their bets 3 days before?
- footydude 6mo ago> in e.g. the Iran War just have to place their bets 3 days before? It certainly wouldn't perfectly solve things but the further out a prediction is made the more risk there is that the outcome could change - even for someone with insider knowledge. E.g. I've worked in businesses where an M&A has looked a nail on cert - as part of a small discreet team involved we were being readied for the announcement etc. only for it to stumble a few days before completion. Obviously there are some markets/situations where a few extra days won't make a difference at all, but I could see how something like that would introduce more risk/uncertainty for those with insider knowledge.
- low_tech_love 6mo agoBecause the markets don’t “forbid” anything, especially when they are profiting from it, which polymarket definitely is. It’s the government who must forbid things for the good of the citizens. But somehow the citizens were dumb enough to fall for the bullshit idea that you should put the same person who is profiting in charge of regulating their own crimes!
- elAhmo 6mo agoIt’s not perfectly timed bets, it’s called insider trading. Just one more thing this administration has brought into mainstream.
- andreygrehov 6mo ago[flagged]
- 93po 6mo agoGambling is a state regulation and Trump has absolutely nothing to do with it other than indirectly through supreme court appointments, but even the 2018 ruling that gave more power to states included votes by two democrat appointed justices - so if you're going to blame trump you also need to blame clinton and obama
- whamlastxmas 6mo agoLmao at pure facts getting downvoted
- rickydroll 6mo agoSomebody should these track these people down, and say to them: Nice insider trading scam you have going. Be a shame if something happened to you. Then defenetrate them.
- doctorpangloss 6mo agoAccording to the Guardian, clicking around on some websites. I guess, how many not perfectly timed bets did traders bet on these things?
- smetannik 6mo ago[flagged]
- socalgal2 6mo agoHow can I evalutate if this is a real issue for cherry picked. Someone won the lotto last week. They must have had insider knowledge! Oh, no, I forgot to look at all the people who didn't pick a winner. > Sixteen bets made $100,000 each accurately predicting the timing of the US airstrikes against Iran on 27 February How many bets and for what ammounts were made for other days, or that it wouldn't happen on the 27th?
- dublinstats 6mo agoYes I would have liked to see some more intelligent analysis and statistical justification. This article is just outrage-bait for common consumption.
- Spooky23 6mo ago“Traders” it’s not the word I would use. Maybe traitors.
- jmyeet 6mo agoAt some point this kind of insider trading will end up hurting any supposed "integrity" of the markets. This sort of thing is meant to be actively prosecuted, even if that didn't always happen or didn't always succeed. This is an open kleptocracy now. Nobody will be punished for any of this. Any regulatory authorities have had milquetoast deregulatory sycophants put in charge of them. The powers of those agencies have been consistently eroded by a Supreme Court of radical ideologues. That same court completely invented presidential immunity out of thin air for the person who appointed 6 of them. That president will continue actively selling pardons. If he's not involved in these trades, he'll sell pardons to those who are. And the president himself is free from any consequences. You might be tempted to say "impeachment". I chortle. A lot of poeople misunderstand the source of the power of the American dollar. They then go on to say nonsensical things like "trading oil in [other currency] will destroy the petrodollar". No. Oil is traded in dollars because of the demand for dollars, not the other way around. What underpins the strength of the US dollar is the US military. That US military has been humiliated in Iran and really hasn't won a conflict since 1945 (not countin Grenada). This latest war has alienated current allies. If this continues, I can honestly see people looking for an alternative where whoever controls the currency will actually maintain the integrity of the market by prosecuting this kind of kleptocracy.
- blondie9x 6mo agoWe all know the president and those close to him are making these bets. The question is are lawmakers willing to collectively take action to stop this practice?
- kasey_junk 6mo agoThese headlines always irritate me because they use notional value for sensationalism. The 950m notional is if they were paying for a price move of the whole thing from $0 in cash. But these are highly levered futures contracts. And you are getting in and out at 2 price differences that are close to each other. It’s still shocking corruption and absolutely should be enraging. But that’s because it’s a 10s of millions dollar trade. Not a billion dollar one.
- djoldman 6mo ago100%. They might as well quote the Quadrillions changing hands in the OTC derivative package markets.
- diego_moita 6mo agoThis story isn't new. Several sports were famous for corruption caused by bets: box, soccer, bicycle racing, etc. The result is always a loss of credibility. With time, only the dumbest keep betting.
- lifter3101 6mo agoWhy wouldn’t the platforms require the identity of people cashing out more than, let’s say, $10k a year to be public? Or at least, require KYC level trail to cash out so it can be investigated later. It protects 99% of people who want to have fun by losing money and prevents insider trading at no virtually no cost.
- ninjahawk1 6mo agoIn my opinion the entire prediction market is simply a way to legalize insider trading and war profiteering.
- mmooss 6mo agoThese are clearly leaks and probably violate other laws. If the Trump administration actually cared, they would pursue them. They aggressively pursue other leaks, including searching journalists' property.
- heywoods 6mo agoI think it’s fair to say the trajectory of all of this leads to bad actors creating the events and making decisions on policy that guarantees outcomes that they have conveniently made bets on. https://www.copingwithfootnotes.com/p/the-commodification-of-uncertainty https://www.copingwithfootnotes.com/p/the-commodification-of...
- Garlef 6mo agoOther than casinos, prediction markets have no incentive to punish cheaters
- tsoukase 6mo agoThe gamblers are obviously close to top government politicians, either relatives, friends or straw men. The corruption is escalated in levels the US have never seen. It used to be more covered and punishable but now it's happening in front of naked eyes.
- rapjr9 6mo agoPerhaps these trades are the result of a national security compromise. The current administration has reducing spending on cybersecurity, so perhaps Trump's own phone has been compromised and a foreign country is using the information to profit from the information. Something like this has happened before: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/06/trump-private-cellphone-china-hackers/683006/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/06/trump-p... Would be ironic if Iran was getting funding this way.