These are not easy times to be a journalist, and modern technology is only making it more difficult. Here’s just the latest example.
Times of Israel military correspondent Emanuel Fabian received death threats in March from online gamblers, users of the prediction platform Polymarket, who were trying to force him to alter a report about an Iranian missile strike. The bettors aimed to change the story to win a $14 million betting pool tied to the Israel-Iran conflict, as foxiness.com reported.
On March 10, Fabian reported an Iranian missile hit an open area near Beit Shemesh, Israel. Gamblers sent WhatsApp messages demanding he rewrite the story to say it was an "interceptor fragment" rather than a full missile, with messages like "after you make us lose ($900,000), we will invest no less than that to finish you.”
The bets were placed on Polymarket, a crypto-based, decentralized prediction market that allows wagering on real-world events, including wars. The threats stopped after Fabian notified police and exposed the situation, putting himself and his family at risk.
This event highlights the inherent dangers in betting on armed conflicts, where bettors may try to influence real-world outcomes or public reporting. It’s also one of the first known examples of a war reporter being threatened by gamblers over wagers, which experts note could affect journalistic independence.
Following this incident, lawmakers in Washington have pushed for legislation to ban prediction markets related to war, deaths and assassinations. Still, nothing has been put in place yet to stop it.
For those still unsure of what we’re talking about, predictive trading websites like Kalshi act as regulated exchanges where users buy and sell "event contracts" based on the outcome of real-world events, such as politics, economic data, weather, or sports. Unlike traditional sportsbooks that set odds and act as the "house," Kalshi operates as a peer-to-peer marketplace where user demand determines the price, which generally represents the probability of that event occurring.
In short, Kalshi, Polymarket and more are platforms for turning subjective beliefs about the future into financial assets. However, critics warn that while the platform is legally defined as a financial market, for most users it behaves like a speculative, high-risk gambling site.
The key differences between these websites and sportsbooks is primarily the opponent – with Kalshi, your opponents are other users, the price driven by what the market will bear; with sportsbooks, it’s the house, set by a bookmaker with odds and a vig. However, at the end of the day you’re still spending money trying to guess something that’s going to happen, which trustworthy financial advisers will tell you isn’t a great way to try to make a living.
Prediction markets are overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and licensed as a Designated Contract Market, allowing users to trade on event outcomes – like elections, economic data and weather – as financial derivatives, distinguishing it from state-regulated, offshore sports betting sites. The case of the threatened journalist shows more regulations are needed to keep unethical gamblers from negatively affecting real-world events.