A Democratic congressman has harshly criticized Polymarket (POLA.PVT) for allowing users to bet on the date when the United States will confirm the rescue of an Air Force service member who was shot down over Iran.
“They could be your neighbors, your friends, your family. People are betting on whether they will be rescued or not. It’s disgusting,” Rep. Seth Moulton wrote in a social media post on Friday. (President Donald Trump announced earlier Sunday that a second service member, a weapons systems officer, had been rescued.)
Moulton also described Polymarket as a “dystopian death market” and pointed to Donald Trump Jr. as an investor. The congressman recently banned his staff from participating in prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi.
Polymarket responded by saying it had “immediately” removed the market for not meeting the company’s standards of integrity.
“It should not have been released and we are investigating how it escaped our internal safeguards,” the company said.
Polymarket has previously seen contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars linked to the US and Israeli bombing of Iran.
(Disclosure: Yahoo Finance partners with Polymarket)
