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Polymarket has removed forums related to U.S. military rescue operations amid political pressure, the latest sign of increased scrutiny of prediction markets.
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., criticized a Polymarket page that lets users bet on the day the U.S. confirms the rescue of two airmen after a U.S. military F-15E fighter jet was shot down over Iran. The lawmaker called the page “disgusting” in Post X.
“They may be your neighbors, friends, family members,” Moulton wrote Friday. “And people are betting on whether they will be saved or not.”
“This market does not meet our integrity standards and we have shut it down with immediate effect,” Polymarket said in its response to X.
“It should not have been posted. We are investigating how this slipped through our internal safeguards,” Polymarket wrote.
In another X post, Polymarket said it “does not make money or charge fees in any geopolitical market.”
The U.S. and Iranian militaries are searching for a missing American airman after an F-15E fighter jet was shot down over Iran on Friday. One crew member was rescued, but the other is missing.
Last month, Moulton banned his staff from using predictive market platforms such as Polymarket and Calci, a policy his office believes is the first of its kind in Congress.
“The constituents we serve should trust us to make decisions based on what’s the right thing to do for our country, not on what the outcome of a bet is,” Moulton said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Moulton also told X that President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., “is an investor in this dystopian death market and may have access to information that has not yet been made public.”
Massachusetts lawmakers are joining a growing number of voices in Washington calling for increased oversight of these gambling platforms as interest grows.
A group of Congressional Democrats introduced a bill late last month that would ban prediction markets from betting on elections, wars and government actions in addition to sports.
In February, six Democratic senators asked the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to clarify that it prohibits any contracts related to the death of an individual. These contracts “pose a dangerous national security risk,” the lawmakers wrote.
The CFTC announced Thursday a lawsuit against three states over attempts to circumvent the organization’s sole regulatory authority over prediction markets.
—CNBC’s Dan Mangan, Azhar Shukri and Luke Fountain contributed to this report.
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalsi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and minority ownership.
