For years now, athletes and their families have reported receiving abuse and death threats from gamblers mad that their bet didn’t hit. Those attacks have now reportedly reached journalists. Emanuel Fabian, a military correspondent for The Times of Israel, writes that he has received threats from bettors demanding that he change the substance of his reporting to match what they need for a bet to cash out.
Per Fabian’s account, the issue stems from a March 10 report that he wrote documenting that a missile from Iran hit an open area in Israel, causing no injuries. Inocuous (and, by all accounts, accurate) as that report is, it seemed to get several gamblers riled up. They started to contact Fabian, first asking—and then demanding—that he change his reporting, insisting that the missile didn’t hit Israel but was instead intercepted, and the fragments of that collision hit the open area.
Whether Iran struck Israel or not could matter for several reasons, particularly to government and military officials, but it seemed the people reaching out to Fabian were civilians. And while they presented themselves in some of their correspondence with Fabian as being concerned about accurate reporting, they were asking Fabian to retract a report that he knew to be true.
So…why? Well, it seems at least some of them had taken a “No” position on a bet Polymarket bet that asked whether Iran would strike Israel on March 10—a “market” that had nearly $16 million tied up in it.
Per the terms of the bet, “This market will resolve to ‘Yes’ if Iran initiates a drone, missile, or air strike on Israel’s soil on the listed date in Israel Time (GMT+2). Otherwise, this market will resolve to ‘No’.” There was one catch, though, that the people contacting Fabian seemed to know quite well. It stated that “Missiles or drones that are intercepted… will not be sufficient for a ‘Yes’ resolution, regardless of whether they land on Israeli territory or cause damage.” Hence, the refrain from people that Fabian update his reporting to say the missile was intercepted rather than a direct strike.
According to Fabian, the messages from apparent bettors came pouring in. First by email, then on Twitter, then to colleagues at other publications who were asked to contact Fabian and tell him to change the reporting.
Then, he said, he started receiving direct threats through WhatsApp. “You have exactly half an hour to correct your attempt at influence,” a person wrote to him. “You have no idea how much you’ve put yourself at risk. Today is the most significant day of your career. You have two choices: either believe that we have the capabilities, and after you make us lose $900,000 we will invest no less than that to finish you. Or end this with money in your pocket, and also earn back the life you had until now.” That person apparently mentioned Fabian’s address and family members in that threat.
By all accounts, including apparently the Israeli military, it was a missile that struck Israel on March 10, so Fabian’s reporting is accurate. But the fact that these bettors believed that they could, through coercion and threats, convince him to change his reporting to suit their needs does reveal just how sketchy these markets are. There have been plenty of reports of insiders placing bets on Polymarket and Kalshi using information that isn’t publicly available. Now there’s the potential that a person in a position of authority—maybe a reporter, maybe a politician or government official, maybe a corporate spokesperson—lies or manipulates information to cash a bet in their favor or save themselves from harm. Maybe the “financialization of everything” is a horrible idea. Who coulda predicted that?
Source: Gizmodo