Polymarket Report: 98% Win Rate on Iran War Bets Triggers Security Alarm

A blockchain investigation published alongside CBS's "60 Minutes" has put Polymarket at the centre of a national security debate. On-chain analytics firm Bubblemaps identified nine interlinked accounts that collectively won around $2.4 million betting on US military actions against Iran, with a win rate so high that, in the words of the firm's investigators, "luck alone cannot explain" the results.

Nine Accounts Hit a 98% Win Rate on Iran Bets

The accounts share a pattern that Bubblemaps argues points to coordination and possible access to non-public information. All were created days before America's initial bombardment of Iran in late February. They placed large, high-conviction bets at low odds on the timing of US strikes, then repeated the strategy across later events to maximise profit.

The deliberate losing bets are the detail investigators find most telling. Bubblemaps contends the accounts lost a few hundred dollars on purpose on 20 February to make the overall pattern look less suspicious, while every significant wager landed correctly. That combination of near-perfect accuracy on big bets and calculated small losses is what pushed the firm to conclude the results could not be explained by chance.

Crucially, Bubblemaps stopped short of naming the traders. "We have no proof these are military insiders or even Americans," the firm said. "The data is suspicious and may indicate someone with an unfair informational advantage."

The Real Concern Is Who Else Is Watching

The more alarming implication is not the profit. It is the signal. Polymarket's design makes every trade fully transparent and public, even though the traders themselves stay anonymous. That transparency is what let Bubblemaps run its analysis, but it also means anyone can watch the same data in real time.

Vaiman noted that during the Iran strikes, civilians were reportedly checking Polymarket to decide whether to sleep in bunkers. If ordinary users were treating the market as an early-warning system, foreign intelligence agencies almost certainly were too. He also raised the inverse risk: a government could intentionally place bets to create a false signal and mislead adversaries. "Prediction markets are intelligence and information warfare tools," he said, adding that they do not just predict the future, "they can change it."

The concern is not hypothetical. Last month, US Army Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested for allegedly making more than $400,000 on Polymarket bets tied to the US operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, a mission he reportedly participated in. He has pleaded not guilty. The US prohibits military-related bets on platforms like Polymarket, but a $2-a-month VPN is enough to bypass the geographic restriction. The full investigation aired on CBS's 60 Minutes.

Congress Is Moving on Three Fronts at Once

The findings have accelerated legislative action. At least three separate bills now target prediction market activity. Senator Adam Schiff and Representative Mike Levin introduced the DEATH BETS Act, which would ban CFTC-regulated exchanges from listing contracts tied to war, terrorism, assassination or individual deaths. A separate bipartisan measure, the PREDICT Act, targets the misuse of classified information on prediction platforms. A third bill from Senators Jeff Merkley and Elizabeth Warren, alongside Representative Jamie Raskin, would ban prediction market bets on elections, sports, war and government actions entirely.

Whether any of these passes a Republican-controlled Congress is uncertain, particularly given Polymarket's powerful political connections through Donald Trump Jr. The platform has defended its compliance record, pointing to its Chainalysis partnership announced two weeks before the Bubblemaps findings and citing the Van Dyke prosecution as evidence its systems work. "Insider trading is not welcome on Polymarket, and those who attempt it will be identified," the platform has said.

Notably, Vaiman declined to place the blame on Polymarket itself. "Realistically, anybody can use a cheap VPN or buy a KYC'd account," he said. "That is not just a Polymarket problem. It is an internet-wide problem." That tension sits at the heart of the debate. Some of the sector's earliest proponents have long argued that insider trading is a feature of prediction markets rather than a bug, because it makes prices more accurate. The question Congress now faces is whether that accuracy is worth the national security cost when the subject of the bet is the timing of a military strike.