Perfectly-Timed $1 Billion Wagers Tied To Iran War Raise Suspicion

Alex Kimani

4 min read

A couple of weeks ago, we reported that traders had ramped up bearish bets on oil prices, with traders pouring nearly $1 billion into the ProShares UltraShort Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF (SCO), a leveraged bet on falling prices following war-driven highs. This massive buildup in bearish sentiment came shortly before U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 2-week ceasefire on April 7, which sent oil prices plunging nearly $20 per barrel from recent highs. And now fresh reports have emerged that something far more sinister could be lurking in financial markets, with suspicious wagers made around big developments in the Iran war helping traders make a killing. The Guardian has reported that traders placed over $1 billion in “perfectly timed” bets on platforms such as Polymarket, hinging on developments in the Iran-US war, earning massive windfalls, and sparking suspicions of insider trading.

According to the Guardian, on the night of February 27, an unusual influx of approximately 150 accounts placed bets that the U.S. would strike Iran the next day just hours before joint U.S. and Israeli airstrikes began. These last-minute bets caused the market’s implied probability of a strike to jump from a mere 7% to 26% within hours.

A New York Times analysis has revealed that 16 of these accounts pocketed more than $100,000 each from the wager. Around the same time, an anonymous user operating under the handle “Magamyman” turned an initial investment of approximately $87,000 into more than half a million dollars overnight by betting on the “removal” or “toppling” of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei roughly 71 minutes before news of the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes became public.

On March 23 the “Productive Talks” bet involving roughly $580 million in oil futures were traded 15 minutes before President Trump posted on social media about “productive” talks with Iran. The price of oil dropped nearly $10 per barrel immediately after the post. Then again on March 27, an estimated $760 million short on Brent crude was placed about 20 minutes before Iran announced the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The report has also flagged the bearish wagers that we reported earlier this month, noting that traders placed approximately $950 million on falling oil prices just hours before Trump announced U.S.-Iran ceasefire.

The unusually high degree of successful bets has raised serious concerns about insider trading. Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps has identified a single trader (or cluster of 38 linked wallets) that has achieved a 93% win rate on unannounced military operations since 2024, netting over $2 million. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is currently reviewing these trades after a consumer advocacy group filed a formal complaint citing suspected insider trading.

“Not only the timing, but the amount of these bets makes it look very likely that someone had insider knowledge … and placed very, very substantial bets on it,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen who filed the group’s complaint to the CFTC.

White House spokespeople have stated that federal employees are subject to strict ethics guidelines and dismissed claims of administration-linked insider trading as “baseless”. Internal emails recently warned federal staff against using non-public information to place bets on prediction markets like Polymarket or its U.S.-regulated competitor, Kalshi. U.S. lawmakers have called for immediate transparency, citing concerns that classified military intelligence is being used for financial gain with U.S. Senator Chris Murphy announcing plans to introduce legislation banning prediction markets from allowing bets on military actions and deaths.

However, Holman has expressed skepticism regarding the ability or willingness of CFTC to investigate this suspicious market activity, describing the current environment as a “wild west” where regulatory oversight is lacking. Holman has pointed out that the CFTC currently has only one active commissioner, Michael Selig, who was appointed by Trump and considered friendly toward the prediction market sector. CFTC has seen significant departures of enforcement lawyers, with enforcement at its flagship Chicago office, historically a hub for market regulation, dropping to zero.

Additionally, market experts have warned that the surge in online prediction markets and digital betting, combined with complex legal definitions, makes detecting insider trading significantly harder. Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi allow users to bet on real-world events-leading to cases where individuals with material non-public information (MNPI) can make large, profitable trades shortly before news breaks. Insiders are no longer limited to trading stocks; they can now bet on news events ranging from geopolitical conflicts to federal political decisions. This “shadow trading” on event-based contracts allows insiders to monetize information in legal gray areas. Further, blockchain-based betting platforms offer transparency in transaction records, while the pseudonymous nature of these records makes it difficult to link trades to specific individuals.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

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