As Donald Trump works out the final details of an admittedly fragile ceasefire with Iran — one that is currently threatening to upend the global economy as we know it — some unidentified individuals have been using “prediction markets” to consistently and accurately bet on the president’s next move. The fact that his son, Donald Trump Jr., just so happens to be a “strategic advisor” to one such company, Polymarket, has some people wondering whether this is the next frontier of insider trading.
The AP reports that a couple of Polymarket accounts were created on Tuesday morning, just as Trump was making cryptic remarks about how “a whole civilization will die.” Not many people knew what he meant at the time — the president himself later clarified that he was not planning a nuclear attack on Iran. As it turned out, the day ended with a ceasefire. Exactly as the anonymous Polymarket accounts had “predicted.”
The way Polymarket works is that each gambler — conveniently called a “predictor” — buys shares in an outcome. The less likely the outcome, the cheaper the share. In this case, the probability of a U.S.-Iranian ceasefire was considered so low that shares were going for just 8.8 cents. One anonymous account reportedly put down $72,000 on a ceasefire and ended up making over $200,000. Several other wallets made similar bets and also walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This is gambling. Under normal circumstances, a person wouldn’t know how long a speech by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will last, or how many times Elon Musk will tweet in a week — both of which are actual running bets on the platform. But when someone has influence over these outcomes, it stops looking like a lucky guess.
Recently, the administration was already facing suspicions that the same war may have been used to facilitate insider trading on oil futures. There’s always a chance Trump could reverse course — he’s called “TACO” on Wall Street for a reason — but the surgical precision of these predictions has led some critics online to call for SEC investigations, if only to ensure the administration isn’t profiteering from war.
On X, users were quick to demand accountability. One pointed to an obvious starting point: “Trump Jr. sits on the board.” Another wrote, “These guys are amazingly talented at insider trading very few people could pull this off.” Others simply demanded answers: “Let’s find out who they are. We all know who runs that site to allow that person to get away with it!”
Trump jr sits on the board
— 👩🏽💻 (@SN_Techie) April 9, 2026
These guys are amazingly talented at insider trading, very few people could pull this off. Let’s find out who they are
— Keep Right 🏁 (@KeepRightX) April 9, 2026
we all know who runs that’s site to allow that person to get away with it!
— ǝllǝ 💋 (@chi_townrusher) April 9, 2026
If LeBron James were hedging bets every night while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers, common sense would suggest he might influence the outcome in his favor. That’s why sports leagues go to great lengths to prevent that — even if it means career-ending bans. But somehow, when it comes to public office — something with far greater consequences — the lines seem far less clear.
War shouldn’t be something some people die over while others profit from it.
Published: Apr 9, 2026 03:18 pm