Bets On Death Of Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Khamenei And Others Draw Scrutiny

TL;DR

Prediction markets faced political backlash after traders profited from bets on Iran strikes and Khamenei's death.

Key Points

• 1.One trader bet $87,000 hours before the US struck Iran on February 28th and netted over $500,000, with Polymarket seeing 23% month-over-month volume growth during the conflict.
• 2.Senator Chris Murphy called the trades "insane" and announced legislation to ban profiting off war or death on prediction platform Kalshi.
• 3.Kalshi's "when will the Supreme Leader leave office" market caused controversy when Khamenei was killed; Kalshi refunded all fees and net losses, clarifying that death-or-assassination contracts are illegal in the US and that they did not profit from the question.