Unlike Kalshi, the other big predicEon-market pla[orm, Polymarket can be used in the U.S. only through a virtual private network, or VPN. In effect, the site is able to skirt regulaEons that require tracking the idenEEes of its customers and reporEng shady bets to the government. In some ways, insider trading seems to be the whole point: “What’s cool about Polymarket is that it creates this financial incenEve for people to go and divulge the informaEon to the market,” Shayne Coplan, the company’s 27-year-old CEO, said in an interview last year. (Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment.) Consider if the Islamic RevoluEonary Guard Corps had paid the monthly fee for a service that flagged relevant acEvity on Polymarket two hours before the strike. The supreme leader might not have hosted in-person meeEngs with his top advisers where they were easy targets for missiles. Perhaps Iran would have launched its own preempEve strikes, targeEng military bases across the Middle East. Six American service members have already died from Iran’s drone aRacks in the region; the death toll could have been higher if Iran had struck first. In other words, someone’s idea of a get-rich-quick scheme may have ended with a military raid gone horribly awry. (The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.)
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