Wagers on the war ignite alarms over possible insider trading in the Trump administration
A few anonymous accounts created in the days before the attacks on Venezuela and Iran obtain notable profits on prediction platforms
BarcelonaThe war in Iran has raised alarms about the role of betting platforms in relation to the United States administration and the environment of President Donald Trump. According to various North American media outlets, anonymous accounts created shortly before the military interventions in Iran and Venezuela have fueled suspicions about a possible use of insider information –or even classified as confidential– by members of the government or Trump's allies and family members.
"Prediction" platforms are companies that allow anyone to bet online on practically anything, from political events to sports competitions, within a legal framework that is unclear about the limits that both bettors and the companies themselves must follow. Betting contracts usually have a yes or no outcome (that is, they consist of correctly predicting whether a specific event will occur in the real world or not). Among the most used platforms in the United States are Kalshi and, to a lesser extent, Polymarket.
According to the financial outlet Bloomberg, in the days leading up to the start of hostilities by the US and Israel against Iran, about 150 million dollars were bet on the removal of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran's supreme leader and, according to the Reuters agency, another 529 million dollars on a series of contracts linked to the timing of the attacks on Iran. The analysis company Bubblemaps identified six accounts opened the day before the attacks that made a combined profit of 1.2 million dollars on Polymarket by correctly predicting the date of the military intervention, which was February 28. Furthermore, another blockchain analysis company, Lookonchain, has pointed out that three specific accounts created a few days before the war had earned about 480,000 dollars on a bet that a ceasefire would be reached before April 7.
Despite this, even though this type of bets with high profits have raised alarms among Trump's opponents, the fact that they are anonymous accounts makes it impossible to know who is behind them and who has finally reaped the profits. In this regard, Bloomberg cites a study by Columbia University of New York and Haifa on bets on Polymarket, which suggests that several coordinated operations with patterns compatible with the use of insider information have generated profits of 143 million dollars in two years, although the same report recalls that this type of operations and profits are not conclusive proof that there have been malpractices.
Suspicions with Venezuela
Suspicions about a possible use of confidential or privileged information already arose in January of this year, when the US sent a military force to Caracas to detain and transfer Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to US territory. On that occasion, an anonymous user's account on Polymarket made a profit of $400,000 after betting a few hours before the military operation would take place.
Along the same lines, California Democratic Congressman Mike Levin has also focused on bets made shortly before Iran's attacks. In fact, Congress has several proposals in progress to tighten legislation on this type of betting in order to prevent the use of insider information.