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Democrat rips Polymarket for taking bets on fate of US pilot shot down over Iran

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by Fiona Bork - 04/03/26 4:40 PM ET

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by Fiona Bork - 04/03/26 4:40 PM ET

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Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) on Friday ripped the prediction platform Polymarket for accepting bets in a since-deleted page on the date a U.S. pilot shot down over Iran will be found.

“They could be your neighbor, a friend, a family member,” Moulton wrote in a post Friday on the social platform X. “And people are betting on whether or not they’ll be saved.”

“This is DISGUSTING,” he wrote.

Polymarket has since taken down the poll for not meeting its standards.

“We took this market down immediately as it does not meet our integrity standards,” the company in a statement on X. “It should not have been posted, and we are investigating how this slipped through our internal safeguards.”

A U.S. fighter jet was shot down over Iran on Friday, the first since the Israeli-U.S. war on Iran began five weeks ago. One crew member has been rescued since the crash. Information about potential other crew members on board and their whereabouts has not been released.

Moulton also noted in his post that Donald Trump Jr. is an investor in the platform, which could give him “access to intelligence that isn’t public yet.” Polymarket just implemented a new tool it claimed will restrict politicians from betting on certain polls in an effort to prevent insider trading on the platform.

Moulton and other bipartisan lawmakers have been critical of prediction markets like Polymarket. He recently banned his staff from trading on such platforms.

Last month, Polymarket users sent threatening messages to an Israeli journalist after one of his reports on a minor missile strike near Jerusalem became the focus of a poll on the Israeli-Iran conflict.

“Prediction markets have become a playground for corrupt insiders who are able to place bets on things like election outcomes, wars, and even the deaths of public figures,” Moulton said in a statement on his decision. “This is creating a perverse incentive structure that poses a genuine threat to American society today.”

—Updated at 5:19 p.m. EDT

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