{"id":529461,"date":"2026-07-07T11:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/529461\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T11:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:41:09","slug":"bettors-threaten-lawsuit-over-polymarkets-iran-deal-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/529461\/","title":{"rendered":"Bettors threaten lawsuit over Polymarket\u2019s Iran deal ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Was a final agreement signed that brought an end to Israel and the United States\u2019 war with Iran? In light of the continued mutual attacks last week and Donald Trump\u2019s promise that \u201cthe Islamic Republic will not exist,\u201d the clear answer is no. But according to betting market Polymarket<\/a>, the answer is yes, and a permanent agreement to end the war was signed on June 15. The question is whether that determination by the betting market was authentic, or whether it rested on subjective financial motives unrelated to reality.<\/p>\n

A group of bettors who lost significant sums on the wager argue it was the latter. They are now taking on Polymarket, in a fight they say exposes fundamental problems in the platform\u2019s structure and dispute resolution process, which allows a few actors to tilt the final outcome of wagers and pocket illegitimate profits amounting to tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

\"\u05e4\u05d5\u05dc\u05d9\u05de\u05e8\u05e7\u05d8\"<\/a>\"\u05e4\u05d5\u05dc\u05d9\u05de\u05e8\u05e7\u05d8\"<\/p>\n

Polymarket <\/p>\n

(Photo: Gabby Jones\/Bloomberg)<\/p>\n

\u201cUsers should be aware that putting money into Polymarket carries a real risk that the market will be resolved in a way that does not necessarily match the written rules or the factual reality,\u201d said B., who lost 100,000 shekels on the bet. \u201cPolymarket chose to ignore repeated appeals from users, refused to take responsibility for the disputed ruling and did not provide its users with a fair mechanism for reviewing the claims that were raised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every wager on Polymarket, or what the site calls a \u201cmarket,\u201d is on the binary outcome of a specific event. For example, will Brazil win or lose a World Cup match against Japan? At the same time, on the same game, will Japan win or lose, and will the match end in a draw, yes or no? In some markets, such as sporting events or awards ceremonies, it is easy to understand the correct outcome: whether a team won or lost, whether a film won an Oscar or not. But Polymarket also allows bets on current events, sometimes involving outcomes that are less clear-cut. For example, will traffic in the Strait of Hormuz return to normal by July 31, yes or no?<\/p>\n

Although the market rules define the conditions for determining a \u201cyes\u201d outcome, the interpretation of those conditions can sometimes become disputed because of various nuances. That is the case in the market that asked whether the United States and Iran would sign a permanent peace agreement by a certain date. The market handled a total of $478.91 million, spread across different dates \u2014 for example, $24.17 million in bets on whether a permanent agreement would be signed by April 30. On June 14, Iran and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding to end military operations, and that is where the dispute at the heart of the ruling begins: Was this a final agreement or a temporary one?<\/p>\n

\u201cI was closely following the internet to understand whether any agreement had been signed,\u201d B. told Calcalist. \u201cI knew one was expected to be signed, but I also knew that a permanent peace agreement could not be reached before the nuclear issue was dealt with. When a tweet came out from the Pakistanis saying a peace agreement had been signed, the coin flipped and the market moved toward the \u2018yes\u2019 voters. At that point, I could have saved 80% of the money, but I wholeheartedly believed there would not be a permanent peace agreement here. Even before the agreement was published, a request had already been filed for the June 15 market to close in favor of \u2018yes, a permanent agreement was signed\u2019 \u2014 there were markets on the platform for whether an agreement would be signed by June 15, by June 30, by July 31 and so on \u2014 but I was not alarmed because I thought that when the moment of truth arrived, Polymarket would not let it close like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dispute is whether the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States meets the market\u2019s definitions of a permanent peace agreement. According to the definitions, a permanent agreement must include a mutual commitment to a permanent cessation of military operations. Agreements that are explicitly temporary are excluded from this definition. The Islamabad memorandum of understanding does declare \u201cthe immediate and permanent end of military operations,\u201d but it also includes language indicating that it is a temporary agreement: \u201cIran and the United States undertake to conduct negotiations and reach a final agreement within 60 days.\u201d This wording creates a dispute over whether any of the agreement markets, regardless of date, can be resolved as \u201cyes,\u201d involving a total of about $260 million.<\/p>\n

But with regard to the June 15 market, worth $177.37 million, the picture appears clearer: The market terms state that it will resolve as yes only after the United States and Iran officially sign the agreement, or after public announcements by both governments confirming that the agreement has been signed. Statements about contacts, progress or other statements that do not constitute an unequivocal declaration do not count. However, the official signing of the agreement took place only on June 17, when Trump himself was documented signing it alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe agreement has to be written,\u201d Omer Aganihu, who lost about $2,300 on the bet, told Calcalist. \u201cNo written agreement was published on that date at all, only on the 17th. Iran said it would sign only on the 17th. And before the deadline, they said they were signing an extension of the pause for 60 days in order to conduct negotiations toward a final cease-fire that would include a complete and permanent halt on all fronts. The second criterion \u2014 public announcements by the United States and Iran \u2014 was never met. At first, Iran said it had signed an agreement that permanently ended the fighting, but the United States never issued such an official statement. And before the end of the deadline, Iran itself also walked that back and said there were still issues that needed to be negotiated and that it had not yet been signed. The state of affairs between the United States and Iran shows pretty clearly that they never signed a permanent cease-fire, only a memorandum of understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once a request is filed to rule that a market has closed with a certain outcome, a window of several hours opens during which the determination can be appealed. If an appeal is filed, the dispute is transferred to UMA, a crypto-based fact-checking platform that functions as a decentralized arbitration system for Polymarket. The platform is independent and is not controlled by the betting platform.<\/p>\n

Every disputed Polymarket market goes to a vote on UMA, in which users who purchased the cryptocurrency it issues can participate. Voting lasts between 48 and 72 hours, with each participant\u2019s voting power derived from the number of tokens they commit to the vote. The vote is decided by the largest number of votes, determined according to the number of tokens on each side rather than the number of voters. At the end of the vote, the committed tokens are redistributed, with voters on the majority side receiving a share of the tokens held by voters on the minority side. This mechanism is intended to create an incentive for participants to vote for the truth, in order to ensure that they receive additional tokens.<\/p>\n

In the case of the disputed market, UMA\u2019s vote ruled in favor of the \u201cyes\u201d camp, and the Polymarket markets were finally resolved as \u201cyes, a final agreement was signed.\u201d But UMA\u2019s mechanism has several built-in problems that surfaced in the vote on the agreement with Iran.<\/p>\n

First, a few voters with large token holdings, known as \u201cwhales,\u201d can tilt the vote toward their preferred side regardless of objective reality. According to an analysis conducted by Aganihu, the largest whale in this vote controlled 16.7% of the votes, the five largest whales controlled 41.7% and the seven largest whales controlled 50.3%. All of them voted \u201cyes.\u201d In other words, a vote on the fate of a quarter of a billion dollars, in which 565 people participated, was effectively decided by only seven people.<\/p>\n

Another problem is that UMA has no way to prevent people who hold a position in a Polymarket market from participating in the vote on that market\u2019s fate. Aganihu\u2019s analysis identified links between at least three crypto wallets that bet \u201cyes\u201d on Polymarket and also voted \u201cyes\u201d on UMA. \u201cThis requires a serious investigation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

UMA votes are also vulnerable to manipulation in the form of coordinated voting among participants. According to estimates, the mechanism allows for voting power of up to 15%.<\/p>\n

After the ruling, a group of users who lost money on the bet organized. \u201cWe contacted Polymarket in every possible way, through dozens of emails and on social media, and received no response,\u201d B. said. \u201cWe will use all legal tools at our disposal to bring the matter before the court.\u201d Polymarket did not respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Was a final agreement signed that brought an end to Israel and the United States\u2019 war with Iran?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-529461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}