{"id":550203,"date":"2026-03-19T08:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T08:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/550203\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T08:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T08:54:16","slug":"australians-use-banned-bookie-as-war-wagers-spark-journalist-death-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/550203\/","title":{"rendered":"Australians use banned bookie as war wagers spark journalist death threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Elias<\/p>\n

March 19, 2026 \u2014 6:16pm<\/p>\n

Save<\/p>\n

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n

Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n

Save this article for later<\/p>\n

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.<\/p>\n

Got it<\/p>\n

AAA<\/p>\n

Australians are flocking to a controversial site offering odds on events in Middle Eastern conflict zones, including whether shrapnel from a single missile hit land, prompting death threats to journalists reporting on the conflict to change their reporting.<\/p>\n

Polymarket, a New York-based prediction market banned from Australia due to a lack of local regulatory license, allows users to place bets with cryptocurrency on a vast array of outcomes ranging from weather events to political outcomes to more traditional sporting bets.<\/p>\n

\"WomenWomen weep after Iranian state media confirmed the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Getty<\/p>\n

That regulatory hurdle has not stopped Australians using virtual private networks (VPNs) to trick the website into thinking they are based overseas so they can access the platform and place bets on military action such as \u201cAyatollah Khamenei leaving office\u201d and \u201cUS forces enter Iran\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has warned about the risks of using such unregulated prediction sites, and wrote to Polymarket\u2019s parent company last year issuing a formal warning for contravening the law.<\/p>\n

The authority\u2019s warning included in-house research finding there were 1.88 million visits to Polymarket\u2019s website from Australia in the six months to last June. Experts believe Australian customer numbers have continued grow, with the platform\u2019s popularity skyrocketing globally since.<\/p>\n

In response to questions, the authority said that while it was illegal for companies such as Polymarket to be offering gambling services here, \u201cit is not prohibited for Australians to access\u201d the site.<\/p>\n

Australians sharing advice on how to access Polymarket is common across online forums seen by this masthead, including Reddit. The banned platform is so popular that posts exist on the Australian Taxation Office\u2019s online forum querying how winnings will be taxed.<\/p>\n

\"HugeHuge amounts of money are pouring into prediction markets.Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Unlike traditional wagering outlets such as TAB and Sportbet \u2013 which also offer odds on political outcomes but not war \u2013 where the bookmaker determines odds, Polymarket\u2019s are entirely set by user activity.<\/p>\n

The platform counts Donald Trump Jr as an investor and adviser. The US government reversed a ban on Polymarket operating in that country in December.<\/p>\n

Polymarket, which was contacted for comment, has justified its war markets as harnessing \u201cthe wisdom of the crowd to create accurate, unbiased forecasts…in gut-wrenching times like today\u201d. It said it had discussed its service with people directly affected and argued its markets could give them answers that traditional media and social sites could not.<\/p>\n

The vast array of predictions that Polymarket offers odds on have prompted fears the platform encourages insider trading, with recent suspicious betting behaviour fuelling such concerns.<\/p>\n

Analysis conducted by the New York Times found that on February 27 \u2013 the day before the US and Israel began strikes on Iran \u2013 more than 150 accounts, mostly newly created, placed more than $US850,000 betting there would be a strike by the 28th.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the year, one Polymarket user placed $US32,000 in bets that Venezuela\u2019s president Nicolas Maduro would be removed from office days before US forces entered that country and captured him. The user\u2019s payout exceeded $US436,000.<\/p>\n

Polymarket\u2019s betting mechanism relies on a binary yes\/no outcome, and looks to a variety of sources for confirmation, including government announcements and news reports.<\/p>\n

Karoline Thomsen, who is completing her PhD on international law and social media at UNSW Canberra, said \u201cthe potential for insider trading on the platform is extremely high\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s designed to be anonymous \u2013 you don\u2019t even need to verify your identity when creating an account,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"RescueRescue forces operate at a building hit by an Iranian missile strike in Tel Aviv.Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Several markets related to the US-Israel-Iran war have stated a \u201cresolution source will be a consensus of credible reporting\u201d.<\/p>\n

It has meant news reporting plays a crucial role in determining how Polymarket resolves granular matters of truth.<\/p>\n

On March 10, Times of Israel reporter Emanuel Fabian covered an Iranian ballistic missile which had fallen in an open area outside Jerusalem. <\/p>\n

Later that day, a reader emailed him claiming authorities had since clarified that what fell was a fragment from an interceptor launched at the missile, not the missile itself. They asked Fabian to update his article.<\/p>\n

After further requests to change the article, Fabian realised a connection to Polymarket. \u201cIran strikes Israel on March 10\u201d was the name of the market, with more than $US14,000,000 wagered.<\/p>\n

It was one of four Iranian missiles launched at Israel that day, but the only one not intercepted. If the story were re-written to state it was an interceptor fragment that fell, the market would change from \u201cyes\u201d to \u201cno\u201d as Polymarket stated interceptions do not count as a strike.<\/p>\n

Within hours, fake screenshots circulated purporting to show Fabian acknowledging an error. Another person offered him a portion of their winnings if he changed his report.<\/p>\n

Five days after his blog post, Fabian began receiving death threats, he wrote in a later article. \u201cAfter you make us lose $900,000 we will invest no less than that to finish you,\u201d one threat said, according to Fabian.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"There<\/a><\/p>\n

Polymarket has since condemned the harassment.<\/a> \u201cPrediction markets depend on the integrity of independent reporting. Attempts to pressure journalists to alter their reporting undermine that integrity and undermine the markets themselves,\u201d its spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time a source of truth in war has come under scrutiny, said Thomsen, noting such situations \u201cpose serious moral questions\u201d.<\/p>\n

In January, an unofficial Ukrainian online map considered an authority about incoming Russian attacks suffered a glitch. The administrator was flooded with complaints, not about the safety implications for Ukrainians, but from punters who had placed bets. \u201cIt\u2019s not impossible that whoever is responsible for resolving those maps had a bet on the outcome,\u201d Thomsen said.<\/p>\n

Responsible Wagering Australia, the lobby group representing betting companies, said its members do not offer markets on war outcomes. Its CEO Kai Cantwell was critical of how Australia\u2019s Polymarket ban is policed. \u201cAustralians can still access …(Polymarket) through offshore sites where there are no consumer protections, no integrity oversight, and no taxes or fees paid to support governments, sport or racing,\u201d Cantwell said. <\/p>\n

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Save<\/p>\n

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n

Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n

\"EliasElias Visontay<\/a> is a National Consumer Affairs Reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 19, 2026 \u2014 6:16pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-550203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}