A consumer watchdog group is calling on the federal agency that regulates prediction markets to investigate what it says are a series of “highly suspicious bets” placed on President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.
In a letter sent on Thursday to Michael Selig, the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a representative for the group Public Citizen pointed out that users have been able to make off with six-figure winnings from betting on political outcomes using platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, which “advertise that you can bet on almost anything, anywhere.”
“While bets on the future of the Iranian regime had been sporadic and imprecise for months before the invasion, several very substantial bets were placed in the last-minute moments prior to the February 28 attack,” wrote Public Citizen’s government affairs lobbyist Craig Holman.
“For most of the year, bets of [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] being removed from power were long shots and low-balled guesses,” Holman said. “In just the few hours before public announcement of the February 28 attacks, the odds and amount of the bets changed radically, rising from small bets at less than 25% to a few very large bets at over 50%. In the end, a few anonymous bettors hit the nail on its head and became very wealthy.”
Holman pointed to a report from NPR that an anonymous account with the username “Magamyman” made more than $553,000 placing bets on Polymarket just before the Iranian leader was killed by an Israeli strike Saturday.
TheWall Street Journal, meanwhile, reported findings from the crypto analytics firm Bubblemaps, which identified “six suspected insiders” who had won a $1.2 million profit on a US strike through Polymarket. As the Journal wrote:
These users’ bets were among half a billion placed on Polymarket alone regarding the precise timing of US strikes on Iran.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said “it’s insane this is legal” and that “people around Trump are profiting off war and death.” He added that he was “introducing legislation ASAP to ban this.”
Holman asked Selig to identify the users who placed the highly lucrative bets and who, within the Trump and Netanyahu administrations, may have been privy to insider knowledge about the strikes.
The Trump family is deeply intertwined with the world of prediction markets. The president’s media company, earlier this year, partnered with Crypto.com to launch its own prediction platform called “Truth Predict.” Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. is an adviser to both Polymarket and Kalshi.
The president’s CFTC chair, Selig—who has appointed the CEOs of prediction market platforms as advisers—has sought to shield betting markets from regulatory scrutiny, describing his goal as ushering in “the Golden Age of American financial markets.”
Last month, facing what he called “an onslaught of state-led litigation,” Selig made the legally questionable assertion that Congress had given his agency the exclusive authority to regulate these platforms, not as tightly controlled gambling hubs but as commodities markets, which have much looser rules.
The Iran war is not the first time that mystery users have walked away with massive hauls after placing fortuitously timed bets on Trump’s military operations. In January, a user won $436,000 on a bet that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be ousted by the end of the month, which they’d placed just hours before Trump’s operation to remove him from power.
“Allowing prediction market platforms to bet on virtually anything, any time, is a recipe for disaster,” Holman said. “The American people should not have to wonder whether government officials are exploiting their access to classified information to make a quick buck. The CFTC must act swiftly to regulate platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket in order to protect the public.”
This story was published in partnership with Common Dreams. Read the original story here.