Polymarket gamblers threaten Israeli journalist over missile strike story
Emanuel Fabian says his routine report became focus of wager with $23m at stake on online prediction platform
An Israeli journalist received threatening messages from users of the online prediction platform Polymarket after one of his reports, on a minor missile strike near Jerusalem, suddenly became the focus of an unresolved bet about the Israel-Iran conflict.
“After you make us lose $900,000 we will invest no less than that to finish you,” said one message to the journalist, Emanuel Fabian.
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Related Knowledge Center: Prediction markets
Platforms are offering a way for users trade positions — place bets — on a wide range of possible events, and newsrooms are starting to incorporate the data.
As the business rapidly grows, critics and opponents are pushing back. Numerous states have argued that the markets are gambling, and sports gambling in particular is regulated by the state. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, now led by a Trump appointee, disagrees — as did a federal district court judge in a suit involving New Jersey.
Critics see some of the markets as, particularly in the case of military actions, indefensible, and note as well that some large, well-timed bets — “event contracts” — suggest an abuse of insider knowledge of federal actions.