Traders placed over $1B in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war
by trocado on 4/18/2026, 6:36:07 PM
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/18/iran-war-bets-ethics-concerns
Comments
by: beaviskhan
You'd have to be spectacularly stupid to bet on these kinds of things without having insider knowledge, because you ought to know good and damn well by now that the people with insider knowledge are DEFINITELY betting on them.
4/18/2026, 7:37:20 PM
by: outlore
There’s a recent Patrick Boyle video which puts it aptly: prediction markets are a wealth transfer from retail investors to trading algorithms and people with security clearances.<p>Anyway, one thing I don’t understand yet is how new markets are created. They aren’t user generated, so how did an “Iran strike” market exist to begin with?
4/18/2026, 8:32:28 PM
by: reenorap
Without them talking about how much people LOST, this entire article is meaningless. With the advent of 0DTE options which dominate options trading, the fact that the notional number of people who made money makes sense because so many more people have lost money.
4/18/2026, 8:04:20 PM
by: reactordev
Prediction Markets require insider trading to function... how do people not know this? It's a setup from day one. If you have the knowledge, you're going to cash in, if you don't have the knowledge, you are throwing your money away.
4/18/2026, 7:54:30 PM
by: mrtksn
I wonder if this means that in a true free market betting is actually impossible as extra-gaming structures like those spontaneously emerge.<p>You need centralized regulation to make it work.
4/18/2026, 7:51:24 PM
by: ck2
What's the statute of limitations on such things?<p>Because it won't be prosecuted by 2029 but could be afterwards<p>Personally I think it's a bigger problem when the President sues his own government for billions and then orders them to pay it out<p>Because -that- is not an official act. It could be prosecuted but no-one will touch it even after 2029
4/18/2026, 7:28:04 PM
by: ChrisArchitect
Related:<p><i>Traders place $760M bet on falling oil ahead of Hormuz announcement</i><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47812385">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47812385</a>
4/18/2026, 8:55:17 PM
by: cineticdaffodil
Now of cocourse there are bots circling watching for insider trades. Which you can "milk" by pretending to insider trade and then hedging a bet against them. A whole eco system of scoundrels
4/18/2026, 6:56:42 PM
by: wslh
I would be careful about attributing all of this to ordinary insider trading. Another plausible explanation is that some activity could come from state linked or intelligence adjacent actors, where the goal is not only profit but also testing or exploiting prediction markets as an auxiliary information channel.
4/18/2026, 7:55:40 PM
by: echelon
What value do prediction markets give to anyone not in the insider trading class?<p>I predict these will be banned when someone finally uses them as an "assassination market".
4/18/2026, 7:33:47 PM
by: hdhdhsjsbdh
Yet more evidence of the rapid disassembly of the social contract and our collective ethics, aided of course by unregulated tech. If you work for – or are involved in the funding of – these unregulated gambling and insider trading platforms, you should be ashamed of yourself. Your greed and lack of concern for the health of the human world you live in is sickening. You can get bag after bag but it will never fill the void in your soul.
4/18/2026, 6:51:10 PM
by: sieste
Maybe a superhuman AI? /s
4/18/2026, 7:47:21 PM
by: _the_inflator
Oh well this is so bad.<p>Perfectly timed - and I thought: minute? No, a day! Pretty precise and since there are time zone differences what context did they use?<p>A laughable article. How many was lost because others bet on another day?<p>Really. Such a joke. Perfectly timed - 100k…<p>It is part of the system by design that someone needs to warn while others not. All are looking into a crystal ball.<p>Someone got killed? OMG, how precise! I bet there are thousands of such bets running and not working because the person still lives.<p>Imagine how dumb this is: this isn’t a mafia hit job some streets further down the road - this is an operation that could also have failed.<p>And then? Would The Guardian be sorry about the loss as well, this time the money of the “poor” speculating soul? I doubt it.<p>It is a lottery. The fact that it is won again and again is simple statistics. That’s why in Germany it got adjusted to make it harder to win. In other words: more combinations need to be used. Previously more and more people joined the lottery and therefore the chance to hit the jackpot rose due to variety.<p>Really such a lousy article.<p>Hedge fonds - don’t make me mention them.<p>UK was famous during the 80th not only for the Guinness Book of Records with totally weird records but also the many bets that were possible on all the different events and outcomes in UK. You could bet on the dress the queen mom would wear on a given day, her hat - eccentric, quirky but bet is bet.<p>There was this one guy during World Cup 2016 when Germany beat Brazil 7:1. How did he know?! The chances! Conspiracy I bet - or according to the G perfect timing.<p>What a joke…
4/18/2026, 8:47:35 PM