Insider Trading Suspicions Over Polymarket Bets on Israeli Election

Prediction market platform Polymarket is at the center of a new insider trading controversy over suspicious bets on the outcome of Israel's general election. The company confirmed that hundreds of new accounts had placed trades betting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party would win, and said it is reviewing these trades.

Data analytics firm Polysights reported that in the 24 hours before the vote, large purchases favoring a Likud win were seen from new wallets. The report stresses that the election is one of the most decisive in Israel's history since its founding in 1948. Netanyahu and his allies won 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. The main rival, the Yashar party led by Gadi Eisenkot, and three other opposition parties won 48 seats.

Rival Kalshi is trying to stay away from high-tension political betting and says it does not offer any trading related to deaths. Polymarket, meanwhile, has been the focus of similar insider trading allegations for the past 18 months.

Similar cases have surfaced before. Last June, it was reported that a Mossad member had placed bets on the timing of the US and Israeli airstrikes on nuclear facilities in Iran. In January this year, it emerged that sources close to the Trump administration had placed multiple bets on the timing of a US operation against Venezuela. Shayne Coplan, 28, who runs Polymarket, and Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, who run rival Kalshi, face numerous lawsuits and investigations across the United States.