Polymarket criticized over ‘disgusting’ bets on fate of pilots on US jet shot by Iran

Polymarket criticized over ‘disgusting’ bets on fate of pilots on US jet shot by Iran US congressman decried bets on when two crew members on the F-15 jet shot down by Iranian forces would be rescued After strong criticism from a federal lawmaker, the online betting platform Polymarket stopped accepting wagers on when US warplane crew members who were shot down in Iran might be rescued. It promised to investigate how the market materialized. The criticism came from Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democratic representative who earned two bronze star medals serving with the United States marine corps in Iraq from 2003 to 2008 and published an X post describing Polymarket’s acceptance of bets on the downed pilots’ fate as “DISGUSTING”. Prior to Moulton’s post, Iranian military forces on Friday had shot down an F-15E Strike Eagle jet occupied by two US air force members participating in the war on Iran being waged by the US and Israel since late February. The aircraft’s pilot was rescued within seven hours. Donald Trump announced the other crew member’s rescue just after midnight Sunday through a post on his Truth Social platform. For a time, Polymarket permitted users to wager on the timing of those rescues, with most betting they would occur by Saturday. Moulton did not take kindly to learning that the platform was allowing such bets. While the search and rescue efforts for the downed jet crew were in full effect, Moulton wrote on X: “Their safety is unknown… And people are betting on whether or not they’ll be saved. This is DISGUSTING.” Polymarket’s X account replied to Moulton: “We took this market down immediately as it does not meet our integrity standards. It should not have been posted, and we are investigating how this slipped through our internal safeguards.” Moulton countered in another post that Polymarket was still accepting hundreds of other war-related wagers that it should deactivate, adding that the company’s “integrity standards are severely lacking”. At...