> Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was not, it’s safe to assume, a devoted Polymarket user. If he had been, the Iranian leader might still be alive. Hours before Khamenei’s compound in Tehran was reduced to rubble last week, an account under the username “magamyman” bet about $20,000 that the supreme leader would no longer be in power by the end of March.

I know this is more for the drama than an actual claim, but it makes me wonder -- is this bet visible in the data? _Would_ somebody have been able to guess it? I looked for the original market, and am surprised by two things:

1. There was lots of activity around that value when the order was placed, so I don't think the trade would have alerted anyone [1]

2. Polymarket lists the trade as happening _19 days ago_, Feb 16! I don't understand why polymarket says it happened feb 16, when all the news I've seen reports it happening just before the strikes. I'm guessing there's a bug in the way polymarket displays past trades?

[1] https://snipboard.io/DP1MWK.jpg

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47211476 - “Allegations of insider trading over prediction-market bets tied to Iran conflict” (morningstar.com)

97 points | 5 days ago | 55 comments

Also from The Atlantic about prediction markets: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/03/central-lie-p... - “A Technology for a Low-Trust Society”

It's 100% legal if you're in the inside circle

I said this in another thread, but if you were to ask me "what is the biggest 180 you've made on some political or policy question in the last decade", it would for sure be prediction markets. I used to be all-in on the idea after reading Caplan, Taleb etc.: make people have "skin in the game" on a grand scale and we can have better predictions and better policy! But what a disaster they've been in practice: it's just a new avenue for government corruption and ruining your life with gambling.

Betting was once a vice overseen by the mob -- and those addicted to it were rightly viewed as pathetic figures, akin to serious alcoholics. Now betting pervades nearly every aspect of Anglosphere life. This transformation, which has taken place over the past 100 years but has really picked up steam over the last 15, has not been an improvement. It's net negative for society, and the evidence on this is very clear.

Prediction markets are the worst and most insidious manifestation of this phenomenon. They reward insider trading and may also induce people to seek outcomes that are undesirable for society at large. (e.g. in tfa.) There's literally no way this experiment ends well -- which is to say that there's no way this ends in "markets" that benefit and enlighten the common man.

I look forward to the pendulum swinging the other way. Even with such a broken political system, it might.

Isnt this silly when you can calculate the chance of war in Iran by oil futures instead. Prediction markets are just explicit markers of information that is already being traded on in 100 different ways.

Placing a bet based on insider national security information should be regarded as leaking. But the markets aren't the problem here.

Just another grift for orange man and his posse. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/anonymous-polymarket...

These are scraps, so far. Now, what could you do if you had access to both markets and the Executive? About 4 billions, it would seem.

[dead]

I think it's safe to say that beside national security risks. Allowing unrestricted betting on pretty much anything in the world is just not something we should have...