War prediction markets are a national-security threat
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
https://xcancel.com/mansourtarek_/status/2029996077554815268
While I think this policy removes one avenue of incentivizing death of real people (many bets involving real people can probably be resolved by some sort of assassination attempt), I honestly think the whole concept of betting on real world events is ludicrous to begin with, including sports. It always incentivizes behavior that doesn't naturally occur (the trope of fixing horse races comes to mind).
> ...the Commission may determine that such agreements, contracts, or transactions are contrary to the public interest if the agreements, contracts, or transactions involve—(I) activity that is unlawful under any Federal or State law; (II) terrorism; (III) assassination; (IV) war; (V) gaming; or (VI) other similar activity determined by the Commission, by rule or regulation, to be contrary to the public interest.
So if one side is claiming something, yes, would absolutely love to see how much of their net worth is tied into betting that something would come to fruition (like lowering inflation, or medical care, or increasing jobs, etc)
I watched polymarket like a hawk for weeks before the attack and am incredibly familiar with the numbers. Fact is, there were no indications on Polymarket that an attack was happening that morning. The chances of an attack was like 10 percent if I remember correctly.
It isn't. But also the whole point of prediction markets is to allow insiders to profit in return for providing valuable information.
MMW: The US will strike Iran before March 2nd, 2026
https://www.reddit.com/r/MarkMyWords/comments/1rgjwpu/mmw_th...
Give people enough time, and they'll start figuring out more and more ways to try to predict the markets given observations of the real world. Some will fail, but some will definitely succeed.
Like, I think in a way it's just not viable to patch every little loophole a corrupt or morally bankrupt administration could exploit and all damage it could cause, and probably not without making the administration itself useless. It's a still a good idea to patch as much as feasible, in part to if slightly discourage the worse from seeking power in the first place. But in a way, it's garbage in, garbage out. Laws will never be able to magically turn corrupt and misguided decisions into ever good ones. The robust solution is promoting wisdom, ethics, civility and education, so people make good democratic choices for themselves and others.
This is why I'm opposed to prediction markets - they're gamified futures contracts (unsurprising given the founders at Kalshi are ex-Citadel and why Intercontinental Exchange executed growth equity rounds with Polymarket). A lot of degenerate gamblers are basically being taken to the cleaners as they lack the experience to actually mitigate risk or understand how to strucure futures contracts.
And an actual insider has much easier and much more legally defensible alternatives to conduct insider trading than using a platform that has KYC requirements.
The Hittites and Bronze-Age Egyptians had forward-deliverable contracts that, if you squint, they would trade amongst each other. The idea of being able to assign a contract to a third party to which you're a beneficiary is about as old as civilisation. In part because it's obvious. In part because it's impossible to police. But mostly because it's useful.
(I'm ignoring insurance and reinsurance, both of which are derivatives and rely heavily upon them.)
"Scale back derivatives" is a reasonable argument. "Ban derivatives" is silly.
> Not comparable
Totally comparable. I'm actually struggling to think of an infrastructure-building civilisation in history that didn't have some form of tradable forwards.
That is what my reading recollection is recalling on 'derivative-like".
> This is the way the jew make money.. and made a fortune the past ten years, selling short the shipping futures, let the goyim deal in the real world.
One instance obviously, but not often do you hear them say the quiet part out loud. Most of the times it’s just firms profiting off hardship and/or prior knowledge, which is easy to hide.
You or I certainly don’t have a say in this
No, but anyone who has an introductory knowledge of derivatives and their history will know of the Onion Futures Act, which banned "the trading of futures contracts on onions" to predictable (albeit long term) effects.
Broadly speaking, the less someone knows about derivatives and the further their work is from the production of any good (versus services), the more likely they are to get upset about it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act#cite_note-fo...
If they didn’t want Israel dragging the US into wars they could’ve just placed a call to Iran to warn them.
The downing of flight MH-17 as reported by Russian media was instructive. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russian-m...
I also frequently refer back to why Russian language has 2 different words for truth: istina and pravda.
Deciding not to betray your ally isn't a "moronic cover story".
If you're going to portray that as the alternative you actually make their actions sound more reasonable.
Of course if you actually wanted to start this war, and wanted a low effort cover story, you’d…do exactly this kind of lazy, low effort lie.
Which of those claims is untrue? Is there a claim I missed?
"The US could have snitched to Iran" does not contradict any of those claims.
Also I'm not convinced that warning Iran would have made things much safer for US troops. And you can say what you want about what the US priorities should be, but that's a whole different discussion.
And what you think is "trivial" is far from certain.
It’s an absolute howler that the United States would be led around by the nose by a country smaller than New Jersey. C’mon, man. You honestly believe that the massive military buildup that preceded this was just a wild coincidence?
If the Israelis were actually pushing the US around in the way we’re supposed to believe in this story the US would absolutely ruin them in a heartbeat. Netanyahu would be in prison in a timeframe measured in hours.
The US might have already decided it was going to attack, but it just as easily might not have.
They didn't say it was their absolute only option or something like that, as far as I know. (If they did say that you needed to mention it.) That would have been a clear lie. Saying Israel moved first is just... plausible.
I don't like having my intelligence insulted by such brazen falsehoods, so in that regard this is true.
I'm happy for your heroic amounts of credulity, it must make life a lot easier in this administration.
> I don't like having my intelligence insulted by such brazen falsehoods, so in that regard this is true.
Okay I guess I assumed you disliked the stuff you were calling a lie and a moronic cover story.
> I'm happy for your heroic amounts of credulity, it must make life a lot easier in this administration.
It's not that I'm being very credulous, it's that they said very little about their decision process. The claims you're objecting to are relatively minor details about the situation. You keep exaggerating the implications of their claims every time you say why they must be wrong.
There's a bitter irony in this issue -- toppling the regime in Iran would be a wonderful thing, but doing so via bombs is not the way. We have Afghanistan and Iraq as very dear lessons in how not to do it.
Marco Rubio said outright we went in because of Israel. Just watch Trump's speeches, he literally talks about the power of the Israel lobby and hopes he is doing a good job for them. Netanyahu has visited Trump 7 times in the last year, each visit has been leading up to this move. Trump's biggest mega donors are Israeli dual citizens with strong ties to their home country. Miriam Adelson, Sheldon Adelson, Larry Elison (who has conveniently taken control of the TikTok algorithm and banned the phrase "#freepalestine" through his connection with Trump) have donated hundreds of millions for this exact outcome. These donors have direct ties to the Israeli government.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/13/who-is-miriam-adel...
There is very little evidence that the strikes are being driven by oil, in fact oil is the perfect excuse to use as cover. It was the exact same thing with the Iraq war. Iraq and Iran were the two largest threats to Israel, we went into Iraq to regime change them and now we are finishing the job with Iran. Now there are no threats to Israel's expansion to the rest of the middle east. The ruling party (Likud) supports the Greater Israel project, which aims to expand Israel's borders to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.
Thanks for having my back! I think of HN as a community of intelligent people and it's always disappointing to be reminded that that alone is no guarantee of healthy discourse.
If anything, this administration is moving the other direction when it comes to betting markets, crypto, investments, etc.
What you are saying is logical for how enforcement should happen, but it isn’t happening that way.
Not sure if banks are the best example of proving the country is not headed towards high risk gambling.
And people dying in question is army, professional murderers for hire themselves, not a big loss.
I agree that company info being leaked is whatever. No one is hurt by knowing that Apple is working on a foldable phone; maybe an exec loses his million dollar bonus and can't upgrade his yacht this year, and the market can operate off of that knowledge.
But the flip side is that there's no way to distinguish between leaked company info and leaked government info, and up until this era of history, there was rarely financial incentive for anyone to leak govt info, and even if there were, it was almost impossible to do so completely anonymously.
I'm not necessarily agreeing with the article. Who knows if that actually happened? But the incentives make it more plausible than ever.
(0) https://www.youtube.com/live/t647EWQst5A?si=TPNx7RbxWvn9wVdn
Yeah, I heard the same thing at the same time from several friends. And I'm not talking top brass, so it must have been pretty obvious at that point.
I guess what might be more interesting is how many people bet $1000 the day before that, and the day before that. That would be more helpful to determine what is noise from well-informed outsiders vs. insiders.
As a noob to this area, how would [Iran increasing oil exports] indicate [higher chance of impending conflict]? Is the idea that Iran exported more oil to raise some funds in expectation of the conflict? Surely if Iran expected conflict it would have done more than just increase oil exports?
That is, if it's 20:1, say, then I can bet $1000 to win $20,000. I can do that several days in a row (if I've got that kind of money). If I think there's, say, a 25% chance that the US is going to attack, then I only have to be within four days.
I could've been wrong, but it was a reasonable guess. The local Israeli news anchors were in the newsroom broadcasting within minutes of the attack going public, I guess they slept in the office with their clothes on too.
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”
Kids are growing up with the culture of sports betting, meme stocks, Robinhood for easy investing (even if you can’t afford a single share of a stock), virtual items and loot boxes, “blind box” products, etc. the entire economy runs on taking advantage of people with gambling compulsions / addictions.
And to answer your rhetorical-but-not-really question, not all people know they are “the fish” (referring to the quote from the movie Rounders).
As I understand it, selective prosecution has always been the rule rather than the exception.
Then gambling on prediction markets, stocks, crypto etc will be the new normal.
This is post-AGI.
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.
Good thing that Polymarket gives such a good signal unlike such subtle clues as carrier group movements.
I know this is more for the drama than an actual claim, but it made me wonder -- is this bet a remarkable occurence in the data, or just one trade in a sea of similar trades? _Would_ somebody have been able to guess it? I looked for the original market[0], 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?
Note that if polymarket is displaying the history of trades incorrectly, my claim #1 may not hold.
E̶d̶i̶t̶:̶ ̶M̶a̶g̶a̶m̶y̶m̶a̶n̶'̶s̶ ̶g̶e̶n̶e̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶y̶m̶a̶r̶k̶e̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶p̶r̶i̶s̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶L̶o̶o̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶l̶o̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶i̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶_̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶_̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶m̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶l̶o̶s̶e̶[̶2̶]̶.̶ ̶A̶m̶ ̶I̶ ̶m̶i̶s̶r̶e̶a̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶d̶a̶t̶a̶?̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶w̶a̶g̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶d̶d̶l̶e̶ ̶e̶a̶s̶t̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶_̶a̶r̶e̶n̶'̶t̶_̶ ̶e̶x̶c̶l̶u̶s̶i̶v̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶a̶g̶e̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶;̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶w̶a̶g̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶p̶l̶e̶n̶t̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶f̶f̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶(̶c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶P̶M̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶T̶h̶a̶i̶l̶a̶n̶d̶,̶ ̶B̶i̶t̶c̶o̶i̶n̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶c̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶m̶u̶l̶t̶i̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶d̶a̶t̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶S̶P̶5̶0̶0̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶d̶o̶w̶n̶,̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶n̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶W̶i̶m̶b̶l̶e̶d̶o̶n̶,̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶s̶)̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶a̶c̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶s̶e̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶d̶i̶c̶t̶o̶r̶.̶ I was reading the trades ordered by profit, so only the successes were showing. Order by date to see Magamyman's failures. Thanks @stevenwaterman for catching this.
[0] https://polymarket.com/event/khamenei-out-as-supreme-leader-...
Or you know, be in a bunker dug into the mountains somewhere, rather than being in your official residence? He was a 86 year old man faced with the prospect of living the rest of his life in a bunker, so there's a good chance he wanted to die a martyr.
Its really hard to imagine why anyone would do something that stupid when america just parked an aircraft carrier off your coast and looks to be spoiling for a fight.
This particular market wasn’t about the likelihood of a strike but the probability of radical success. It seems at least possible in the circumstances that the Iran Supreme leader chose his own fate, which was inherently predicable and also exactly what I seem to recall him publicly predicting, albeit without a strict deadline.[3]
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86yjnw4x49o
[2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/trump-says-he-g...
[3] https://www.malaysianow.com/news/2026/03/01/khamenei-killed-...
"Khamenei, the leader of the great nation of Iran, the freedom seekers of the world and the Islamic nations, has joined the highest paradise and reached his long-cherished wish of martyrdom in the holy month of Ramadan," said an announcement aired on Iranian state television.
Sounds to me like it was made up after the fact.
I personally have difficulty believing Iran didn't know that war was inbound, everyone I talk to was anticipating it within a roughly 3-week window and these are people just working off what they read on internet news. Khamenei might not have known he was going to die that day and if he had his family would probably have been elsewhere. But it seems pretty reasonable to assume that he was purposefully not raising his security in his final days. The narrative win of a calm death vs the perfidious Israeli attack is powerful enough that he must have considered it.
There is an understanding that the strike that took him out also took out a lot of visiting high-level leaders; that'd be quite strong evidence against the idea it was intentional. But the fog of war is thick and it doesn't seem safe to take that occurrence as a given yet.
Khamenei wasn't the only one killed in that meeting. All of the evidence points to Iran having expected America to attack at night. And in fact, that was the plan until we learned about that idiotic meeting.
[1] https://nypost.com/2025/06/18/world-news/iran-supreme-leader...
[2] https://www.news18.com/world/in-the-name-of-haidar-last-post...
I would argue that Trump probably wouldn’t have felt confident enough to do this if he wasn’t already running on a high after the Venezuela war going so well for him.
I always thought we were going to strike. We very publicly moved a lot of military assets into the region. Trump had issued a red line about Iran killing protesters, and then they killed protesters, and we all remember how he and everyone else harped on Obama for not following up on his own red line in Syria when they used chemical weapons on their own people.
And most importantly, a few days before it happened, he said he wasn’t happy with the progress of talks. That was when I started figuring out how to get money into polymarket.
All of this was the exact same as the buildup to Venezuela. The only thing shocking is how low the odds were on the market.
While I agree with the thesis, they chose the weakest possible example.
Note: the owner of the Atlantic has ties to Epstein and Israel. They are extremely biased on anything to do with this war in Iran.
"Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was not, it’s safe to assume, a devoted Polymarket user."
We have to assume that he made the choice to be a martyr. He was in his own home at the same time that the entire world could see the enormous buildup of resources the US was placing in the area. Trump did exactly the same tired "will he or won't he" that he has done for various other actions.
An attack was the most obvious event on the planet. This isn't some magical ret-conning, but anyone with a functioning brain could predicted the outcome.
I think the Polymarket angle to this is more that people were betting on whether he would choose existence over martyrdom. He could have hidden in countless places and sent various tirade videos for years, Osama-style, but this 86 year old man just decided to wait for the bombs.
And on Venezuela, anyone who thinks that was just a fantastically successful op is not rational. Clearly Trump had buy-in by either the Russians -- in return for some favours on Ukraine -- or various members in the Venezuela military (or most likely of all, both). Seeing several CH-47s flying over an entirely predictable target area utterly guarantees this.
Venezuela was a coup that levered the US military to fulfil it cleanly. With absolutely and complete certainty.
I don't think we have to assume that. He could have thought the military build up was a bluff. He could have trusted in Iran's defenses to allow him time to find safety. He could have thought his assassination attempt on Trump would pan out. There are a million other could-have's that we could invent, and I don't think "him choosing to be a martyr" is any more (or less) valid than the rest of them.
Everyone knew the US was attacking. Iran clearly knew as well.
>He could have trusted in Iran's defenses to allow him time to find safety
Everyone knows what Tomahawks are by now. Everyone knows that the first sign of an attack will be things blowing up around you. Further both Israel and the US have repeatedly performed airstrikes throughout Iran with impunity, including just a few months earlier with zero resistance. No, there is no rational situation where Iran thought their defenses would give cover for an old man in his own palace.
It's infinitely more valid of a supposition to assume he martyred himself.
Weird how this offends some people. It's especially hilarious when we have the classic "Mossad super-masterful strokes figured out that old man was...in his own home"
Like if the US, through masterful intelligence and a giant bunker buster, caught him in some underground complex, then sure. That isn't what happens.