Polymarket Probes Suspicious Israel Election Bets
Polymarket is investigating a string of well-timed and profitable trades on this week's Israeli election, in the latest case to raise concerns about insider trading on prediction markets.
The company confirmed on October 29, 2026 that it is reviewing the activity and has reported it to law enforcement. It follows other recent scrutiny of the platform, including the NFL player bets pulled after a CFTC request.
Wagering on election markets is growing in popularity, not just on prediction sites, but traditional betting sites too.
What The Blockchain Data Shows
Just before the polls closed on October 27, hundreds of new accounts placed bets that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party would do better than their opponents, according to a Bloomberg analysis of Polymarket's blockchain ledger reported by Bloomberg Law. The positions quickly turned profitable after some exit polls showed Likud winning more seats than early reports suggested. Together, some of the accounts have already cashed out more than $100,000.
Bloomberg found more than 600 wallets created on the same day with no trading history, and one account stands to make about $180,000 if both of its bets pay out. Every transaction on Polymarket's international crypto-based exchange sits on a public ledger, which is how the trades can be traced.
Polymarket's internal investigative team told Bloomberg it is reviewing dozens of newly created wallets that traded on the election. Two data analysis firms that have flagged earlier prediction market insider trading cases, Polysights and Bubblemaps, said they had also marked the trades as suspicious and were looking into them.
Bloomberg stressed that the initial analysis is far from conclusive. It can be hard to separate insider trading from original research or luck, particularly in markets where millions of trades happen every minute.
The New York Times Account
The New York Times reported that a Polymarket spokesman confirmed the review of dozens of suspicious bets, placed on who would be prime minister and which party would win the most seats.
Polysights was among the first to raise the alarm, posting on Tuesday that its tools had picked up large inflows of yes buys on fresh wallets.
The paper reviewed one wallet that was created six minutes before it placed a $14,000 bet, 12 minutes before polls closed, and cashed out for $42,000 on Wednesday after the odds moved. It was unclear whether that account is among those under investigation. The race itself was still undecided on Thursday.
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A Pattern Of Insider Trading Concerns
The episode lands as US senators press the industry on manipulation. Elizabeth Warren and John Curtis sent a letter to Polymarket and Kalshi on Wednesday asking how much manipulation could be happening on their platforms, with US midterm elections due on Tuesday, November 3. Polymarket announced a separate election surveillance effort on Tuesday, aimed at spotting attempts to manipulate markets or manufacture the appearance of consensus.
The Times listed earlier cases. In February, Israeli authorities charged two people with using classified military information to bet on Polymarket before the country attacked Iran. In April, three US political candidates were found trying to bet on their own races, and in August Kalshi barred former Representative George Santos over a bet about his attendance at the State of the Union address. Our earlier casino news roundup also covered an insider trading row on the platform.
Separately on Thursday, Polymarket paused trading for about an hour after users said their accounts had been drained of funds. The company said DebugBear, a debugging tool it uses, was involved, and DebugBear said it was affected by an ongoing security incident.
Polymarket has not said what action it would take against any account found to have traded on non-public information. The outcome of its review, and any response from law enforcement, are the next developments to watch.
