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Comments (134)

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  fzil
  Man the moral degradation is off the charts. Prediction markets are easily the worst things to grace the internet by far and its not even close.
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  bitmasher9
  I don’t understand how this isn’t an immediate open and shut case for the police, assuming certain facts are verified independently. At the point that you’re making death threats to strangers you should be removed from civil society.
• bhouston
  An additional complication is that both Iran and Israel are engaging in heavy censorship of news articles, obstensively to prevent the opposing side from getting intelligence/feedback on their missile strikes/other activities, but it is also definitely to control the narrative:https://www.972mag.com/israel-media-censorship-iran-war/This could definitely affect key polymarket bets in the near term. I expect over the long term the truth will come out, but in the near term, it could be obscured.
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  defly
  FYI: In November, an ISW Analyst Manipulated the Situation in Myrnohrad to Rig Map Bets https://militarnyi.com/en/news/in-november-an-isw-analyst-ma...
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  markus_zhang
  The gambling market is really bringing out the worst of us.
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  caminante
  Per HN policy, stop editorializing the headlines.Here's the actual headline:> Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don’t rewrite an Iran missile story
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  fnands
  Man, something like this is going to be a plot point in a movie/tv series soon.Could work in some crime procedural.
• ratg13
  One has to wonder if the people placing these bets didn’t have some plans of their own.A million dollars for a single bet is extremely high stakes.
• logicallee
  This part of the story stood out for me:>More emails arrived in my inbox.>“When will you update the article?” one was titled. The email had no text content, only an image — a screenshot of my initial interaction with Daniel.>Except it did not show my actual response to Daniel, but a fabricated message that I had not written.>“Hi Daniel, Thank you for noticing, I checked with the IDF Spokesperson and it was indeed intercepted. I sent it now for editing, it will be fixed shortly,” I supposedly wrote. (To be clear, I wrote no such thing.)this seems to be a main issue.Would it help journalists if emails were quotable by default and the first party email providers could verify specific quotations? This way this class of fraud, market manipulation, and fake news would disappear.I don't see why people wouldn't leave their responses as quotable when responding to journalists, for example, and journalists could also set their responses as quotable by default.What do you think, could this help this issue?
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  seydor
  Yep, far worse than cryptocurrency
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  mpalmer
  I truly don't know how you wake up, read this story with your morning coffee, and go to work at a company like this.
• carefulfungi
  Athletes are also receiving death threats from gamblers.* https://www.npr.org/2025/11/13/nx-s1-5605561/college-athlete...... and many, many other stories.
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  voidUpdate
  Does the "Continue without disabling" button on the adblock popup just not do anything for anyone else?
• anon
  undefined
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  ajross
  So, just to point it out: people don't get violent and criminal magically because they made a bet. They get violent and criminal to backstop a bet they can't cover. The story here isn't that horrible criminals are using Polymarket. It's that Polymarket bettors are overleveraged, and at the margin some of them turn to crime to avoid losing their shirts.We've all been looking around for the trigger for the market-crash-we-all-know-is-coming. Seems like "too much betting on a stupid war of choice" is just dumb enough to fit the timeline we've been trapped in. Very on-brand.In other news: I'm almost entirely out of volatiles in my own portfolio right now. Cash and bonds until this pops. Frankly the chances are that today will be the day[1] are about as high as they've ever been.[1] Trump, sigh, basically went on camera and capitulated, telling the world that there is no plan, the US doesn't have the capability to ensure trade through Hormuz and that Iran will deny access until Iran decides otherwise. Markets don't like uncertainty, but they really, really hate losing wars.
• shablulman
  [dead]
• anon
  undefined
• VladVladikoff
  [flagged]
• dangus
  As I read through the article it seemed more and more as I read like this issue has actually very little to do with gambling or the gamblers on polymarket.The issue at hand is that Israel has made itself one of the most hated countries in its region and in the world.In my opinion, they have largely made their own bed due to their own actions against their neighbors.Can I really get mad if someone on the internet is upset with me as an American for my country’s sins? They may send me empty death threats but my country bombed an elementary school just this year, as a part of an illegal unauthorized war that my country’s leaders can’t even explain coherently.Downvote if you are suited up to fight AIPAC’s war!
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  epolanski
  Prediction markets need to be banned globally ASAP, but it would've helped the article to bring proof of:- the emails- the whatsapp messages- the discord messages- the X messagesMind you, I'm not stating the journalist is lying or overblowing, in fact I suspect this is all more widespread than we think, but it's odd that the journalist puts emphasis on the sources of his information in the case of the missile, yet it's not about his direct threats, some of those public like X replies.
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  pydry
  The level of censorship in Israel right now is off the charts: https://www.972mag.com/israel-media-censorship-iran-war/I suspect the gambler probably would have won on the basis of what happened but lost on the basis of what the times reported.