Israel accuses two of using military secrets to place Polymarket bets

Israeli authorities have arrested a number of folks and charged two on suspicion of utilizing categorised data to position bets about army operations on the favored prediction market platform Polymarket.

Prosecutors say a civilian and a army reservist have been indicted for bribery and obstruction of justice, with an undisclosed variety of others additionally arrested for putting Polymarket wagers primarily based on categorised data, based on a press release launched Thursday by officers in Tel Aviv.

Whereas the names of these charged and the precise bets they made weren’t disclosed, the announcement comes weeks after Israeli media reported that safety businesses have been probing whether or not army officers have been turning secret intelligence about army strikes into Polymarket bets.

Kan Information, Israel’s public broadcaster, reported final month that authorities investigators have been analyzing Polymarket bets on an Israeli strike on Iran in June 2025, when the nations fought a 12-day struggle.

Polymarket didn’t return a request for remark.

Prediction markets have been rising in reputation in latest months. The apps permit folks to position high-figure bets on the end result of future occasions, whether or not a basketball sport, what phrases President Trump will use at his subsequent press convention, or election outcomes.

The fees mark the primary publicly recognized occasion of arrests tied to a prediction market wager allegedly made utilizing army secrets and techniques.

In January, a Polymarket dealer turned a $32,000 wager right into a $400,000 payday after appropriately guessing that the U.S. would topple Venezuelan chief Nicolás Maduro earlier than the operation was made public.

Whereas that commerce set off a debate about insider buying and selling on the platform, U.S. authorities have been mum on whether or not it was made by somebody abusing army data, or only a bettor with a very well-timed wager.

In Trump’s second time period, the 2 dominant prediction market websites, Polymarket and Kalshi, have acquired a heat welcome in Washington, as Trump officers dropped Biden-era authorized challenges towards the businesses and vowed to defend the business’s proper to exist in court docket.

However the two websites have notable variations.

For example, most buying and selling on Kalshi is finished with U.S. {dollars}, whereas Polymarket merchants are inclined to wager with cryptocurrencies.

Kalshi is regulated by the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee, which bans providing bets that contain wars, terrorism and assassinations. Polymarket, against this, operates an abroad alternate outdoors the attain of U.S. authorities.

Consequently, Polymarket’s abroad alternate has turn into a magnet for a few of the most controversial sorts of prediction market wagers.

“If somebody is doing one thing they know they should not be doing, they are much extra more likely to be doing that on Polymarket than Kalshi,” stated Joseph Grundfest, a former Securities and Trade commissioner who’s now a regulation professor at Stanford College.

“The issue is we’ve a wide selection of markets which are unlawful, immoral and problematic which are facilitated by these buying and selling with nameless crypto,” he stated. “Now prediction markets like Polymarket are the most recent manifestation of this downside.”

Whereas bets on army strikes, land invasions and world famine occur on Polymarket’s abroad platform, the corporate can be planning to launch a U.S. app that will likely be overseen by the CFTC after a key approval by Trump officers. The Biden administration had raided the Polymarket CEO’s dwelling and shut down the corporate’s American enterprise in 2022.

The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., is an advisor to each Polymarket and Kalshi. His enterprise capital fund, 1789 Capital, has invested in Polymarket. And the president’s personal social media website, Reality Social, has plans to launch its personal prediction market service. All of which has fueled critics who argue that the Trump household stands to realize financially by permitting prediction market platforms to function with light-touch rules.

Grundfest, the previous SEC commissioner, stated the arrests in Israel ought to put militaries around the globe on edge about personnel making an attempt to money in on categorised secrets and techniques.

“Such bets,” he stated, “can put your personal army at higher danger since you are signaling to your enemies what might occur, and that places your personal troops at risk.”