Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) ripped Polymarket on Friday after the popular prediction market platform allowed users to place bets on the fate of a missing American F-15 fighter pilot shot down over Iran.
The since-deleted market offered degenerates the opportunity to wager on what date the US would confirm that the downed airman had been found – with most (63%) predicting that they wouldn’t be rescued until Saturday.
“This is DISGUSTING,” Moulton fumed on X, sharing a screenshot of the betting market.
Moulton noted that the page went up amid “an ongoing search and rescue operation.”
“Their safety is unknown,” the congressman wrote. “They could be your neighbor, a friend, a family member.
“And people are betting on whether or not they’ll be saved.”
Polymarket said the betting page should not have been allowed to go up and was removed.
“We took this market down immediately as it does not meet our integrity standards,” the company wrote on X.
“It should not have been posted, and we are investigating how this slipped through our internal safeguards,” it added.
Polymarket allows users to place bets on a wide range of Iran war topics, such as whether US ground forces will be used and when a cease-fire may be announced.
“Taking down this particular bet after I called it out can only be the first step,” Moulton wrote in a subsequent post. “There are still 219 war bets active on your platform.
“Remove these immediately.”
The company claims it does “make money or charge any fees on any geopolitical markets.”
Moulton’s criticism of Polymarket comes after the company took heat from Democratic lawmakers earlier this month after six suspected insiders made $1.2 million on contracts tied to the strikes on Iran – including an alleged $550,000 windfall related to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) pledged to draw up legislation to ban bets tied to government actions in response to the gambling on the Iran war.
“This is American commercial immorality on steroids,” Murphy told the Washington Post, arguing that prediction markets have created a more “dystopian world.”
“People shouldn’t be rooting for people to die because they placed a bet,” the senator said.
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