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No More Gambling With The Lives Of Iranians: We Must Ban the War Prediction Market
Prediction markets represent a further commodification of war, violence, and death—one that risks manufacturing consent for more violence by providing people with a financial incentive for it.
Mar 10, 2026
On February 27, more than 150 accounts placed bets on Polymarket accurately predicting that the US would strike Iran by the following day. Of these accounts, at least 16 made a profit of over $100,000, and at least 109 made over $10,000. The New York Times found one anonymous account that had spent $60,000 in the days before the strikes and made nearly half a million dollars.
Given the timing of these bets, this has raised concerns about insider trading. Bubblemaps, an analytics platform that turns blockchain data into interactive visuals, found a cluster of linked accounts that made $1.2 million by making very specific bets with near-perfect accuracy. This includes betting that the US and Israel would attack Iran on February 28.
What’s more, their analysis found that this was not an isolated incident. For instance, in June 2025, two of these accounts bet $10,000 and $100,000 that Israel would launch military strikes against Iran just days before they did. Those strikes were part of a surprise attack that Israel had been covertly planning for months.
This is a serious issue, but let’s be clear: The idea that this kind of insider trading is not happening under the most overtly corrupt presidential administration in US history is quite frankly laughable. Indeed, the Trump administration is actively supporting Polymarket and Kalshi against ongoing efforts by states to ban them. Coincidentally, Donald Trump Jr. has invested in Polymarket through his venture capital firm and is a strategic advisor for Kalshi. Any decision that benefits those companies would likewise benefit Trump’s family.
An outright ban won’t change the fact that we are a nation where millions of people believe it is completely fine to gamble on death.
But the problem here is larger than the Trump fraud network. Prediction markets represent a further commodification of war, violence, and death—one that distracts from the injustices of war and the suffering of its victims. It is a commodification that risks manufacturing consent for more violence by providing people with a financial incentive for it. While it stopped amid public backlash, Polymarket was allowing people to place bets on whether a nuclear bomb would be detonated by the end of 2026 or 2027. Over $800,000 worth of bets had been placed before the market was taken down.
Betting on such grotesque violence is not only morally repugnant in itself, it risks desensitizing us to the true human cost of that destruction. What’s happening in Iran is not a just war being waged against a legitimate threat. America is not freeing the Iranian people—it is murdering children and destroying a nation without any regard for who will pick up the pieces. This is senseless carnage carried out by two morally bankrupt countries against a nation that, regardless of one’s feeling toward it, did everything it could to prevent this war.
None of these deaths had to happen. And yet, companies like Kalshi and Polymarket were fueling people’s desires for violence. In January, Kalshi began taking bets on whether Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be “out as Supreme Leader” before February 1, March 1, April 1, July 1, or September 1, 2026. This was a lucrative market that attracted more than $54 million in trades. When his assassination was confirmed on February 28, those who had put money on “before March 1” thought they had "won" big.
Instead, Kalshi invoked a “death carveout” clause to avoid paying customers their "winnings." A Kalshi spokesperson said that the company “included every precaution on this market to make sure people could not trade on the outcome of death.”
Their consumers disagree. They filed a lawsuit against Kalshi alleging that they were drawn to the “Khamenei Market” because they understood “with an American naval armada amassed on Iran’s doorstep and military conflict not merely foreseeable but widely anticipated,” Khamenei would “most likely” be removed from office “through his death.”
In other words, these people were intentionally betting that the US would kill Khamenei and are upset because their earnings were denied. This is true regardless of what Kalshi intended or whatever precautions it took. The market itself created the possibility—the perverse hope—that Khamenei’s death might enrich their own.
For those bettors, Khamenei’s assassination was a personal victory; the injustice was that Kalshi denied them their rightful spoils. A business executive in New York told the Washington Post that he had placed two bets totaling $3,460 that Khamenei would be “out” by March 1 and was expecting to "win" $63,000. He remarked: “I was booking my trip to Courchevel. Then they changed the rules… and everybody got screwed.”
Except not everyone got screwed: the Iranian people did. They are the ones who lost everything. That business executive—almost assuredly overpaid—will not miss those "winnings." But Iranians will miss the loved ones they lost. Those deaths are an absolute loss. They can never be recovered, replaced, or recuperated.
These markets should be banned, and there is some congressional momentum on that issue. But an outright ban won’t change the fact that we are a nation where millions of people believe it is completely fine to gamble on death. We are a nation whose government actively posts inane memes and jokes about the illegal war it is conducting in clear violation of international law.
Things must change: We cannot allow ourselves to be driven to moral depravity by a conman and his lackeys. We must end this illegal war. We must help the Iranian people rebuild their country. We must become, in short, a nation that condemns deaths and cherishes life.
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Trump Sons Accused of Trying to Profit Off Father’s Iran War With Drone Investment
"The most corrupt family ever is profiting from all of the death and destruction Trump is responsible for," said one critic.
Mar 09, 2026
There's no end in sight to President Donald Trump's unprovoked and unconstitutional war with Iran, and two of the president's children appear ready to cash in.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are investing in a Florida-based drone company called Powerus that "is vying to meet fresh demand from the Pentagon" for drones that started when the Trump administration banned foreign-made drones and drone components from the US in December.
The company will soon be going public by merging with Aureus Greenway Holdings, a publicly traded golf-course holding company that is also backed by the Trumps, and is expected to make its debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the coming months.
"Investors in the deal include one of the Trumps’ investment vehicles, American Ventures," reported the Journal, "and Unusual Machines, a drone components company where Donald Trump Jr. is a shareholder and advisory board member... Powerus is also a customer of Unusual Machines."
In an interview with the Journal, Powerus CEO Andrew Fox predicted robust demand for his company's products, commenting that the drone market "is certainly going to grow faster than, say, golf courses are."
Eric Trump confirmed and defended his investment in the drone firm, replying to the Journal in a social media post that "I happen to believe drones will be a much better investment than companies that still print newspapers."
Many critics, however, accused the two eldest Trump sons of seeking to profit off a war started by their own father. As the New York Times reported on Saturday, drones have become "a defining feature" of the Iran war, as they have been used by both sides in the conflict to launch explosives at targets at a fraction of what traditional missile barrages would cost.
"Rushing to cash in on Daddy's failed war before they've even gotten Barron and Kai to enlist," wrote journalist Marcy Wheeler. "Truly deplorable behavior, but what we expect from these corrupt reprobates."
University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato argued that the Trump sons' efforts to rake in cash from the war shouldn't be surprising.
"Always a money-making angle for the Trump family," Sabato wrote. "Why should the War with Iran be any different?"
Sabato's words were echoed by fellow political scientist Norman Ornstein, who observed "it’s always about the grift" when it comes to the Trump family.
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, argued that the Trump sons' drone investment should cast a pall across the entire Iran war venture.
"Reminder as Trump starts wars, sells weapons and bombs everyone," D'Arrigo wrote. "The Trump family has a military drone company with military contracts, currently vying to meet Pentagon demand after the Trump administration recently banned new Chinese drones. The most corrupt family ever is profiting from all of the death and destruction Trump is responsible for."
In 2025, at least two companies backed by Trump Jr. received contracts collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the US Department of Defense.
Kedric Payne, general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, said in an interview with the Financial Times last year that the government deals scored by Trump Jr.-backed companies look ethically dubious even if the president’s son didn’t directly use his influence to procure them.
“Presidents are expected to avoid even the appearance that they are using their office to financially benefit themselves or their family,” he said. “While we do not know for certain if, or how, the president may have influenced this loan, it falls under the cloud of conflicts of interest we have seen throughout this administration.”
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Trump Agency ‘Setting Stage for Another Financial Crisis’ With Attack on Prediction Market Regulations
"By moving to crush state safeguards for prediction markets in court, the CFTC is giving gambling companies a green light to prey on all Americans," said one critic.
Feb 17, 2026
A key federal regulatory commission has announced that it will be fighting against individual states' powers to regulate prediction markets.
Mike Selig, chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), wrote in an editorial published by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that his agency has exclusive powers to regulate prediction markets, and that it would be backing an appeal by Crypto.com aimed at overturning state regulations.
Selig, who was appointed to his post by President Donald Trump last year, said this action was necessary because the prediction markets "face an onslaught of state-driven litigation," with many states claiming that these markets are subject to their laws regulating gambling.
"The CFTC will no longer sit idly by," Selig declared, "while overzealous state governments undermine the agency’s exclusive jurisdiction over these markets by seeking to establish statewide prohibitions on these exciting products."
The CTFC commissioner also disputed that prediction markets constituted gambling, saying instead that they are derivative instruments of the kind that the CFTC was given sole jurisdiction to regulate under the 1936 Commodity Exchange Act.
"These exchanges aren’t the Wild West, as some critics claim, but self-regulatory organizations that are examined and supervised by experienced CFTC staff," Selig concluded. "America is home to the most liquid and vibrant financial markets in the world because our regulators take seriously their obligation to police fraud and institute appropriate investor safeguards."
Selig's announcement was greeted with skepticism by Emily Peterson-Cassin, policy director for the Demand Progress Education Fund, who warned the CFTC was making the same mistakes made by regulators that led to the 2008 global financial crisis.
"The 2008 financial crisis happened because we let bankers gamble on housing," said Peterson-Cassin. "Now the CFTC is trying to let gamblers gamble on every aspect of life. By moving to crush state safeguards for prediction markets in court, the CFTC is giving gambling companies a green light to prey on all Americans and is setting the stage for another financial crisis."
The CFTC announcement was also criticized by Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who said that state regulations for online betting markets are fundamentally different from the kinds of futures markets traditionally regulated by the commission.
"I don’t remember the CFTC having authority over the 'derivative market' of LeBron James rebounds," he wrote in a social media post. "These prediction markets you are breathlessly defending are gambling—pure and simple. They are destroying the lives of families and countless Americans, especially young men. They have no place in Utah."
Cox further vowed to "use every resource within my disposal as governor of the sovereign state of Utah, and under the Constitution of the United States to beat you in court."
Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also criticized Selig for trying to interfere in the rights of states to regulate betting markets, arguing that "sports betting is not a derivative, it’s gambling."
Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of MeidasNews, raised suspicions about the effort to undo state regulations on betting apps and pointed to Donald Trump Jr.'s connections to popular prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi.
As reported by the New York Times last month, Trump Jr. "is both an investor in and an unpaid adviser to Polymarket, and a paid adviser to Kalshi," as well as "a director of the Trump family’s social media company, which recently announced it would start its own platform called Truth Predict."
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