Maybe Turning War Into a Casino Was a Bad Idea?
On March 10, the journalist Emanuel Fabian reported on a missile that had been launched from Iran. The warhead hit an open area outside Jerusalem, which Fabian confirmed by speaking with rescue services and reviewing footage of the explosion. He wrote a short post on The Times of Israel’s live blog and moved on.
Meanwhile, gamblers had wagered millions on the unfolding events of the conflict. Fabian’s post became the subject of a major dispute on Polymarket, a popular prediction market where people can bet on the outcome of almost anything. The site had allowed users to guess when Iran would initiate “a drone, missile, or air strike on Israel’s soil”: More than $14 million was riding on whether such an attack had happened March 10.
[Read: America is slow-walking into a Polymarket disaster]
People started reaching out asking Fabian to change his article. Some argued that Israel Defense Forces had not officially mentioned such an attack occurring on that day, and others said that the explosion he had reported was the result of a missile being intercepted, which according to Polymarket’s terms wouldn’t count as a strike “on Israel’s soil.” Confident in his reporting, Fabian did not amend the text.
And then he began receiving threats. “You will discover enemies who will be willing to pay anything to make your life miserable—within the framework of the law,” one person wrote to Fabian before adding, “As far as I know, there are also some people who don’t really care about the law, and you’re going to make them lose about 50 times what you’ll ever make.” Much as athletes have faced threats and harassment from fans with money riding on a game, prediction markets are now creating incentives for gamblers to target all manner of people with inside information or some influence over major events. Polymarket did not respond to my request for comment, but wrote on X: “This behavior violates our Terms of Service & has no place on our platform. We’ve banned the accounts for all involved & will pass their info to the relevant authorities.”
[Read: A technology for a low-trust society]
Prediction markets like Polymarket post online using the language of news wires and position themselves as a new and unbiased source of information, yet this story suggests that these sites are having the opposite effect: They make it harder for news gatherers to report the truth. Yesterday, Fabian spoke with me from southern Israel about what it’s like to be in the center of this controversy while simultaneously trying to cover a war. What he described was yet another way that online events are twisting the very nature of reality—leading Fabian, for just a split second, to doubt what he had seen and heard.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Charlie Warzel: How are you doing?
Emanuel Fabian: It’s been an overwhelming few days. I’ve been busy reporting on the war, and on top of that, I’ve been having to deal with the police and my family and all of these death threats and harassment. So it’s been a lot.
Warzel: Are you still getting death threats now?
Fabian: I’m not. They stopped almost as soon as I went to the police. Since the article I wrote about them went up, I haven’t received anything.
Warzel: You published your original blog on March 10. People began reaching out after that. But when did you make the connection to Polymarket?
Fabian: It took me a little while. When I got the first email about the missile impact, I thought the question [whether the missile exploded was intercepted, scattering shrapnel] was so odd, because it was such a minor, inconsequential detail in the context of a big war. The next day, I got a second email with the exact same questions and thought it was very strange. My theory was that it was either Iranian bots or agents trying to get information out of me. I did entertain the idea it was related to gambling, but I didn’t find the bet initially when I searched online.
The way it clicked for me was that I started to get replies on X and WhatsApp with similar questions like, Hey, why haven’t you updated your story? I figured something was up. I looked at the X profiles and could see they were very clearly Polymarket gamblers. At that point it clicked, and soon after I found the actual page itself for the March 10 bet on whether Iran would strike Israel. It was stuck on March 10 and the market hadn’t “resolved,” or paid out. All the comments were people going back and forth, many linking to my little story and other articles. Overall, I got at least 20 different messages across email, X, WhatsApp, and Discord.
Warzel: You said a contact from another media outlet also reached out to you at this time and suggested they had gotten a tip that your story was wrong. Was this person involved in the gambling as well?
Fabian: They messaged and said, Somebody I know told me there’s a mistake in your story; could you correct it? He thought he was doing both of us a little favor. I told him his acquaintance was likely betting on this on Polymarket. My contact went back to him, and he confirmed that not only was he betting on it, but he offered to give the person money if they managed to persuade me to change my story. It’s all insane. Obviously, the colleague told him off. But I’m losing my mind at this point. This is like the most tiny, inconsequential detail in a small news item.
Warzel: So you decide to call these people out on X. Did the harassment pick up after that?
Fabian: It did. A lot. I thought calling them out would shut them up and get them off my back. I wanted to be proactive because I realized, if I give into these people, it shows I can be manipulated. This will be just the beginning, and they won’t stop trying to bully me in later stories. And that’s when it escalated—death threats, messages coming in at all hours of the night. Messages talking about my family, giving me ultimatums on how much time I had to correct the story. That’s when I went to the police.
[Read: Insider trading is going to get people killed]
Warzel: Did you ever think about changing the story?
Fabian: For a split second I did. I thought maybe I could be wrong.
Warzel: Like, doubting your reporting? After all, you’re making those calls based on other witnesses and videos online.
Fabian: I went and checked again with the military. It was a short item, but I reviewed footage of a large explosion. I had eyewitness accounts—people in the area who saw this massive explosion. And then I thought to myself, Why am I doing this? Triple-checking this minor incident, bothering the military again over an explosion in the woods? I did the reporting, and this was the judgement call I made. I think it was accurate, and I will leave it at that. I don’t need to doubt myself about what I published, especially because this is not something that anyone normally would care about unless they had a financial stake in the outcome. As an event in this war, it is not particularly newsworthy. This missile exploded in an open area. It’s 150 words in the live blog.
Warzel: Do you think this fiasco will stick in the back of your mind as you continue to report on the war?
Fabian: Yes. I think it already has. Since then, whenever I report on something, I feel it in the back of my head: What if the Polymarket bettors are betting on this tweet? Or on whether I’m giving an interview about Polymarket? I’m not obsessing over it. Hopefully I won’t get threatened again. But the thought is there. What if they suddenly see this interview? Because I don’t know the way they’ve resolved the Polymarket bet yet.
Warzel: Wait, really?
Fabian: Yes, I’m looking now and the market is still not resolved. [The market “Iran strikes Israel on March 10 ?” resolved to “Yes” after Fabian and I spoke.]
Warzel: Did the fact that Polymarket kept allowing people to bet while this harassment was going on make things worse for you?
Fabian: It seems that a lot of people came into the bet as a result of my calling it out on X. When I posted about it, the market had $12 million in it. When I published my story on Monday, it had $14 million in it. Now it looks like it has $22 million. People are still betting and hoping it goes their way.
Warzel: Having been through this ordeal, what are your feelings about prediction markets in general?
Fabian: It’s really worrying. I think the gambling is a degenerate thing. The fact that people are betting on wars and conflict and people dying is gross. This is war, not a game. I think the more worrying thing is that we’ve seen harassment by bettors against athletes in sports for failing to perform. It seems now that we are entering a new age. I think there is a big risk of journalists using insider information to place a correct bet and win. I can tell you as a military correspondent that I’m exposed to confidential information that we can’t report. Now there are ways to exploit that. It wouldn’t surprise me if others have.
Warzel: Insider trading, one could argue, effectively makes prediction markets more accurate. Do you think these companies hope journalists and others will bet using privileged information?
Fabian: I don’t think they really want to combat insider trading. What I’ve heard is that those who bet on Polymarket either know the right answer or are wasting their money. [In a statement to The Times of Israel, Polymarket said, “Prediction markets depend on the integrity of independent reporting. Attempts to pressure journalists to alter their reporting undermine that integrity and undermine the markets themselves.”]
Warzel: Do you have advice for other journalists who may experience this type of betting-market harassment in the future?
Fabian: Go public. Don’t let the threats force you to change anything. Be honest. I think that’s the best way. It’s a bit stupid of these people to publicly intimidate somebody who can go and instantly tell 100,000 people what these gamblers are doing. That’s my advice. Because if you were to accept money or change your reporting, who knows how these people might extort you later on. If you change your reporting, it’ll be a mess forever.
Warzel: If you could sit down with the CEO of Polymarket, what would you tell him?
Fabian: I don’t know. I’d be honest and say I disagree with the notion of gambling on anything and everything. But if you are to keep these markets, they have to have admins who can decide on outcomes of bets or issue some kind of ruling. I think there just needs to be a lot more oversight and somebody actually vetting who these big bettors are to avoid insider trading but also to make sure this harassment doesn’t happen. But I’m not an expert on this. I’m more of an expert on where missiles land.