Exclusive: Trader made nearly $1 million on Polymarket with remarkably accurate Iran bets

A trader made nearly $1 million since 2024 from dozens of well-timed Polymarket bets that correctly predicted US and Israeli military actions against Iran, according to an analysis shared with CNN.

The bettor won a staggering 93% of their five-figure wagers about Iran, even though the events they predicted were unannounced military operations.

The trader had a pattern of prescient bets, including hours before Israeli strikes in October 2024 during its tit-for-tat conflict with Iran, hours before US airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, and hours before the joint US-Israeli surprise attack in February, which started the current war.

The findings from Bubblemaps, an analytics company that tracks blockchain transactions, highlight the rising concerns about the potential for insider trading on some prediction markets, where users can wager on everything from sports to elections to warfare.

“All of this is strong signaling of insider activity, based on the amount they made, the markets they bet on, the timing of their trades, the success rates of these trades, and the fact that they are connected on-chain,” Bubblemaps CEO Nick Vaiman told CNN. “This is pretty suspicious in my book.”

It isn’t clear whether the trader flagged by Bubblemaps is an insider, and the accounts they used are anonymous and can’t be publicly traced to a specific person.

The bets were placed on Polymarket’s international site, which is out of the reach of US regulations. Polymarket didn’t respond to CNN’s multiple requests for comment.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that regulates prediction markets, approved Polymarket to start offering trades for American customers last year. Its US-facing site isn’t fully operational yet, but experts say Americans can easily access the offshore site with a virtual private network, or VPN.

The CFTC’s approval came months after the Trump administration closed a Biden-era criminal probe into whether Polymarket was improperly letting US users onto its offshore platforms.

Todd Phillips, a finance professor at Georgia State University who previously served on a CFTC advisory board, said he saw red flags with the Iran trades spotted by Bubblemaps.

Most high-frequency traders typically have a win rate slightly above 50%, Phillips said. The Bubblemaps analysis showed that the Iran trader had an overall win rate of 83%, and a 93% rate for trades over $10,000. They netted nearly $967,000.

“It sure seems like this person either has incredible luck, or was insider trading,” Phillips said. “Having win rates in the 80% to 90% range is just too good to be true. I look at this, and I think something fishy is going on.”

While many of the highly lucrative bets came hours before US or Israeli military activity, other bets were placed days or weeks beforehand — which Philips said is less indicative of insider activity.

Some of the accounts linked to this user still have active positions on Polymarket as of Monday evening. While their most lucrative trades pertained to Iran, they also placed dozens of smaller wagers on various sporting events.

The war in Iran has put a spotlight on platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, another popular prediction site. Lawmakers and government watchdogs have raised concerns about potential insider trading and so-called “death markets,” after high-profile bets about the fate of Iran’s supreme leader.

Kalshi, which bans insider trading, operates fully in the US after securing CFTC approval last year. The company announced new guardrails Monday against insider trading, including extra screenings for athletes and politicians who use the platform.

CNN has a partnership with Kalshi and uses its data to cover major events. Editorial employees are prohibited from participating in prediction markets.

Unlike Kalshi and some other sites, Polymarket has touted the role of potential insiders. Its CEO Shayne Coplan told Axios in November it was “super cool” that his platform “creates this financial incentive for people to go and divulge the information to the market,” including potential insiders.

There is now a well-established pattern of suspiciously timed trades on prediction sites, primarily Polymarket, seemingly whenever major geopolitical events occur. It happened before US forces captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in January, and there were already examples from the Iran war.

In fact, investigators in Israel recently indicted two individuals, including a military reservist, for allegedly using classified material to bet on Polymarket during the country’s war against Iran last year, according to local reports.

Concerned about this trend, a growing and bipartisan array of US lawmakers have recently proposed new legislation that would ban federal officials from using non-public information to bet on prediction platforms.

And the CFTC recently put out guidance that “reminds” approved operators of prediction markets that “insider trading” is illegal, and that the agency can “investigate and bring civil enforcement actions related to any such activity.”

Naturally, there are insider trading risks on all financial markets, including on Wall Street. And the legal definition in the US is narrow, focusing mostly on traders who have a legal obligation to keep certain information private.

Jason Trost, the CEO of Smarkets, a regulated prediction site that operates in the United Kingdom, said there are situations where valuable information is “in theory, available for everybody” but is hard to find, like obscure satellite imagery or overhearing a neighbor. This isn’t insider activity, Trost said.

“The more of that information that gets into the marketplace, all the better,” Trost said. “But if there’s something you know about, that is about to happen, and it is materially non-public information, then that, I think, is the red line.”