U.S.-Iran war attracts $600 million bets on Polymarket
The prediction market has spun up over a dozen Iran-related contracts since Saturday's strikes, with the Khamenei removal market alone pulling in $45 million in volume.
By Shaurya MalwaUpdated Mar 1, 2026, 4:36 a.m. Published Mar 1, 2026, 4:19 a.m.
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What to know:
- Polymarket rapidly spun up a suite of contracts on the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, letting traders bet on ceasefire dates, regime change and potential U.S. ground involvement.
- A market on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leaving power by March 31 drew $45 million in volume and paid out after his death was confirmed, while a long-running "U.S. strikes Iran by" market has amassed $529 million.
- Onchain analysts flagged six wallets that made about $1.2 million by correctly betting on a Feb. 28 U.S. strike, intensifying scrutiny of possible insider trading even as Polymarket defends its markets as a source of real-time public insight.
It took Polymarket less than 24 hours to turn a Middle Eastern war into an active trading floor.
Since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran Saturday, the prediction market has seen a flood of new contracts covering everything from ceasefire timelines to whether the Iranian regime will collapse by June.
The speed and specificity of the markets is striking. Bettors aren't just wagering on whether the conflict escalates, but pricing the week it ends, who replaces Khamenei, and whether U.S. ground forces enter Iran by March 7.
Polymarket's largest completed market is "Khamenei out as Supreme Leader of Iran by March 31?" which resolved to 100% after Iranian state TV confirmed his death.
The contract pulled $45 million in volume, making it one of the most-traded geopolitical markets in the platform's history. The top trader, an account called 'Curseaaaaaaa,' made $757,000 on a Yes bet. Four other traders each cleared six figures.
The chart on that market hovered between 25% and 50% through January and February as tensions built, then spiked vertically to 100% when confirmation came through.
The biggest market, however, is he "US strikes Iran by...?" contract, which has been live since December 22 and has now pulled $529 million in total volume, making it one of the largest single markets Polymarket has ever hosted.
The February 28 date alone attracted $89.6 million in trading. Every daily contract from Feb. 28 through early March resolved Yes after the strikes began, meaning anyone who bought the specific date before the attack collected on a binary bet about when the U.S. military would bomb another country.
The market's resolution rules were precise. It requires drone, missile, or air strikes on Iranian soil by U.S. forces, with interceptions, cyberattacks, and ground operations not counting.
Now the action has shifted to what comes next.
The ceasefire market gives just a 4% chance of a U.S.-Iran ceasefire by March 2 and 15% by March 6, but jumps to 61% by March 31 and 78% by April 30. Bettors are pricing a resolution within weeks, not months, consistent with bitcoin's bounce to $68,000 on the same thesis.
"Will the Iranian regime fall by June 30?" sits at 54%, up sharply from the low-20s where it had traded for months. The "Next Supreme Leader of Iran" market gives a 30% chance to "position abolished" entirely, meaning bettors see nearly a one-in-three shot that the theocratic structure itself doesn't survive. Ali Larijani, a former parliament speaker, leads the named candidates at 21%.
The ground invasion contracts are pulling real volume too. "Will the U.S. invade Iran before 2027?" trades at 19% with $207,000 in volume, while "US forces enter Iran by March 7" sits at 28% with $2 million traded.
What Polymarket is doing here is something traditional markets structurally cannot. Equity and oil futures don't reopen until Sunday evening, but on Polymarket, anyone with a crypto wallet can take a position on Iranian regime change on a casual weekend and see real-time pricing from thousands of other participants doing the same thing.
But the most striking activity may have happened before the first missiles landed.
Onchain analytics firm Bubblemaps on Saturday identified six wallets that collectively netted $1.2 million in profit by betting on a U.S. strike on Iran by February 28, the exact day the strikes occurred.
Most of the wallets were funded within 24 hours of the attack, bet specifically on the Feb. 28 contract rather than broader timeframes, and purchased "yes" shares hours before the military operation began. The largest single wallet turned roughly $61,000 into over $493,000 in profit. A second netted approximately $120,000 from a $30,000 position.
The platform is aware of the optics, meanwhile.
Polymarket added a note to its Middle East markets on Sunday stating that "the promise of prediction markets is to harness the wisdom of the crowd to create accurate, unbiased forecasts for the most important events to society," adding that after speaking with people directly affected by the attacks, it found that prediction markets "could give them the answers they needed in ways TV news and X could not."
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The death of Iran's supreme leader opens the door to regime change, and markets are pricing in a shorter period of tension.
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