Polymarket acct made $500,000+ betting on Iran strike 71 minutes before news broke

[gfarber]

4. Polymarket

There once was a market online
Where wagers on warfare would shine,
Five hundred-odd mil
Bet on bombing and kill,
With profits that soared by design.

Six accounts, fresh as ink on a page,
Made millions by gauging the stage;
They pinpointed date,
The first strike of fate,
And cashed in on war’s opening rage.

Some whispered, “Was someone informed?
Did traders know where it would storm?”
If secrets were sold
For digital gold,
A new kind of profiteer formed.

Another set odds on a throne,
On when Iran’s ruler’d be gone;
Thirty-one mil
Bet change at his will,
As other sites followed along.

Then weekend reports grimly said
The leader in question lay dead;
Joint forces had struck,
And markets saw luck
In contracts on power misled.

The platform defended its trade:
“The crowd’s wiser forecasts are made;
In gut-wrenching days,
We sharpen the gaze
On futures the headlines evade.”

They claimed it gave answers in need
Beyond what the newsfeeds could read;
Yet none of the bets
Gave sheltering sets
Or warned where the missiles would speed.

With blackouts that darkened the net,
And censors controlling what’s set,
What wisdom can bloom
In digital gloom
When access is tightly beset?

As children and hundreds lay lost,
Observers cried out at the cost;
“To profit from flame
And wager on pain
Is moral accounting exhaust.”

Some lawmakers called it obscene,
Demanding transparency keen;
“No market,” they pled,
“Should profit from dread—
Or trade on what insiders glean.”

Yet still on the website remain
Fresh wagers on ceasefire or reign:
“Will regimes fall by June?
Full invasion soon?”
With war turned to odds and to gain.

© 2026 Glen Farber. All Rights Reserved.