It was early April 2026 when two US crew members’ jets were shot down by Iranian forces, while simultaneously thousands of betters wagered on the specific timings of when said crew members were to be rescued, placing thousands of dollars on when the shot down crew would be found. This was one of tens of thousands of markets facilitated by Polymarket.
Founded in 2020, Polymarket is the world’s largest prediction market where betters can place wagers on pop culture events, sports, economy and controversially, geopolitics. The platform prides itself on ‘truth’, claiming to reflect an ‘accurate, unbiased, and real time’ probability for world events. Since 2020, it has grown to provide users with an alternative to looking at news and social media for their answers, instead through markets and predications. Billionaire backing has also significantly allowed for its growth and continued existence as a predication market. Polymarket has drawn massive political attention, described as a “dystopian death market” by Democratic Representative Seth Moulton, he stated that the idea of betting on the predictability of people’s safety is ‘disgusting’.
What’s increasingly clear about markets such as Polymarket is that they do not just observe conflicts, but more alarmingly, they turn human survival into a financial instrument where wealthy betters gain and exchange millions of dollars between them, effectively turning global suffering into a spectator sport for profit.
A system where ‘winning’ is the result of a civilisations ultimate loss.
The New York Times reported that in the last few days of February Polymarket data showed a low probability that the US would strike Iran on February 28th, simultaneously more than 150 accounts placed hundreds of bets of at least £1,000 correctly predicting the American strike on Iran that occurred on Saturday 28th February. This event showed clear signs of insider trading, especially as there were no signs of a strike occurring on said day. One user had even spent $60,000 on “yes” shares in exchange of nearly half a million dollars. In response to increasing dispute among lawmakers about the insider trading that might have been taking place in this instance, Polymarket responded saying that they had taken the market down and were investigating how it had gotten through their internal safeguards.
As betters celebrated their winnings of thousands to millions of dollars on February 28th, Shajareh Tayyebeh, a primary school in Minab had been hit by the US killing between 175 and 180 mostly young girls between the ages 7-12.
In an interview in 2025, CEO Shayne Coplan described Polymarket as “the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now”. He went on to vouch for his market’s revelation of truth and an outlet for people to seek unbiased truth rather than a reliance on mainstream media and social media opinions. After seeing the interview and the basis for the ‘good’ of Polymarket, Coplan frames the gambling as a means for people to gain an ‘edge’ from their predictions on elections, culture and evidently, fatalities. However, as Coplan repeatedly
discussed the ‘truthfulness’ of Polymarket, he was faced with a question on the danger of insider trading and possible corruption of the markets. In response he stated it as an “inevitability” that people will adapt to and ultimately benefit from.
The question of who benefits from Polymarket becomes harder to ignore when you consider that Donald Trump Jr is both an investor in Polymarket, and that the Trump administration closed a Biden led investigation into Polymarket shortly after taking office, the same month President Trump invited Coplan to a crypto summit at the White House.
Reading this, it’s easy to let this add to our diminishing trust in the world and those running it. However, our awareness is not nothing. Regulation of predication markets is already being pushed by journalists and congressional lawmakers.
As young people interested in politics, in driving change and improving people’s livelihoods, moments like these can feel so desperately out of our control. It can feel as though we are simply bystanders to the inequalities that continue to mount over us as the wealthy grow wealthier on the backs of other people’s tragedies. However, we are most certainly not powerless. We may not be able to stop what is happening on Polymarket tonight or tomorrow, but we can control narratives, we can create pressures and we can refuse to treat this as normal.
We only lose if we decide this dystopia is ‘inevitable’ too.