The growing threat of conflict in the Middle East last week prompted a flood of activity in a little-known area of betting: prediction markets in which users can bet on a particular military action.
One user of the Polymarket betting platform won US$4,500 (£3,345) by predicting the exact date of the United States striking Iran.
In total, Polymarket users bet more than US$4 million (£2.97 million) on the US-Iran strikes occurring on February 28.
We are academics who have researched international criminal and humanitarian law and emerging trends in geopolitics on social media platforms.
So, what is Polymarket, how do these platforms work, and what are the potential risks?
Polymarket is a cryptocurrency-based prediction market that offers an extremely wide range of foreign policy events for users to bet on.
Its main competitor, Kalshi, offers sports and policy bets, but not military bets.
The bets themselves are not gambling in a traditional sense, where the house sets the odds. Instead, it’s a contract where the price fluctuates much like shares traded on a stock exchange.
Users can suggest ideas for bets, but the bets are created by Polymarket.
The day-by-day US-Iran strike bet was accompanied by a series of other bets on the conflict, including:
Bets related to the current war in Iran totalled US$529 million (£393 million).
Users can also gamble on the Russia-Ukraine war, using real-time war maps synchronised to the Polymarket app to inform their bets – the same maps Ukrainians check for survival.
All payments are made in cryptocurrency.
Polymarket does not charge trading fees, except on its 15-minute crypto markets. These are comparable to day-trading stocks – users have to trade them swiftly for financial gain.
