Placing morbid bets on military strikes during wartime no longer seems enough for Polymarket bettors; now they are threatening journalists to demand that they rewrite the news to their advantage. The case involves an Iranian strike on Israeli soil reported by The Times of Israel, with bets totaling $20 million.
Betting on War: Predictive Markets Run Amok
The freedom offered by the cryptocurrency sector often clashes with the obvious lack of ethics among some of its users, who are clearly determined to take advantage of this lack of regulation to enrich themselves in every possible way, even if it means betting on acts of war.
This reality is linked to the strong popularity of prediction market platforms over the past year, recently brought back into the spotlight following the launch of U.S. and Israeli strikes in Iran, although the first detected cases involved the conflict in Ukraine.
Indeed, bets regularly appear on Polymarket regarding strikes in Iran, as well as military repercussions in Turkey or a spread to the rest of the Middle East, with a specific date at stake each time. This has even led to betting on the prospect of a nuclear strike, before the platform finally reacted to remove this bet that had gone too far.
In this particular case, it specifically concerns an Iranian strike on Israel, the date of which was to be determined by bettors, with a total volume exceeding $20 million when The Times of Israel officially reported the impact of an Iranian missile near the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh on March 10.
Polymarket bet regarding an Iranian strike on Israel
Polymarket bettors attempt to rewrite the news to their advantage
A seemingly settled war-related incident that will nevertheless prove problematic for certain Polymarket bettors, who are clearly on the losing side regarding this news. And instead of admitting their failure in a context that is already highly questionable, they will not hesitate to directly threaten the journalist behind the report of this strike, Emanuel Fabian, by sending him numerous messages.
The goal? To change the classification of this ballistic missile strike into a simple operation intercepted by Israeli security services, and thus considered a failure. Demands that were initially friendly quickly turned into genuine threats, backed by forged documents.
At the same time, a colleague of this journalist was also approached and offered a share of his contact’s winnings if he could convince him to change his statements, while another bettor announced a loss of $900,000—the amount he was willing to invest to “finish him off.”
When contacted by The Times of Israel, the Polymarket platform stated that it “condemns the harassment and threats directed at Emanuel Fabian, or any other person,” without, however, announcing concrete measures to address the proliferation of this type of betting.
