An anonymous reader shares a report: Israel has arrested several people, including army reservists, for allegedly using classified information to place bets on Israeli military operations at Polymarket. Shin Bet, the country’s internal security agency, said Thursday that the suspects used information they had found during their military service to base their bets.
One of the reservists and a civilian were accused of committing serious security crimes, bribery and obstruction of justice, the Shin Bet said, without naming the people arrested. Polymarket is what is called a prediction market that allows people to place bets to predict the direction of events. Users are betting on everything from the size of any interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve in March to the winner of the League of Legends video game tournaments to the number of times Elon Musk will tweet in the third week of February.
The arrests followed reports in Israeli media that Shin Bet was investigating a series of Polymarket bets last year related to when Israel would launch an attack on Iran, including what day or month the attack would take place and when Israel would declare the operation over. Last year, a user calling himself ricasuave666 correctly predicted the timeline around the 12-day war between Israel and Iran. The bets caught the attention of other traders who suspected the account holder had access to non-public information. The account in question made more than $150,000 in profits before going dormant for six months. It resumed operations last month, betting on when Israel would attack Iran, Polymarket data shows.
