Prediction: Market Trader ‘Magamyman’ Made $553,000 in the Death of Iran’s Supreme Leader

A account Trading under the username “Magamyman,” he made more than $553,000 by betting on the Polymarket prediction market that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be out of power just before an Israeli attack killed him on Saturday.

The trades drew criticism from members of Congress and critics of prediction markets, who say the platforms invite people with access to classified information to profit from deadly military operations. On Poly market onlyHalf a billion dollars were traded just as American troops were about to drop bombs on Iran.

“It’s crazy that this is legal,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote about

The White House denied that anyone in Trump’s inner circle was behind the lucrative transactions.

However, the Trump family does have ties to Polymarket. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, is an advisor to Polymarket and his venture capital firm 1789 Capital has invested millions in the controversial venture. The Trump administration has dropped two federal investigations into Polymarket that were opened by officials of President Joe Biden.

A screenshot of a Polymarket trader’s profile page, showing successful bets on the timing of a US attack on Iran.

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It’s the latest episode to spark the debate over how government and military insiders can monetize state secrets.

In January, an anonymous trader made hundreds of thousands of dollars by placing suspiciously well-timed bets ahead of the arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. A month later, authorities in Israel charged two people with using classified information to place bets on Polymarket on upcoming attacks on Iran as the countries fought a 12-day war last June.

The millions that flowed into the market in connection with the overthrow of Iran’s supreme leader were made on a foreign exchange controlled by Polymarket, meaning it is beyond the reach of regulators in Washington.

The Trump administration has done that approval granted for Polymarket to open a US-based platform, but it has yet to fully launch publicly. Most US traders using Polymarket access the site through a virtual private network, which shields a user’s identity and location.

Most prediction markets, which have grown in popularity in recent months, are federally regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which considers this newfangled type of betting a type of “futures contract,” and not a type of gambling.

Under U.S. commodity trading laws, making trades based on death and war is illegal because these types of bets create a financial reward for violence, human suffering and geopolitical instability.

This limitation was reflected this weekend in the way another major prediction market, Kalshi, reacted to a market related to when Khamenei would be out, a prospect that drew more than $54 million in transactions.

When Khamenei’s death was confirmed, those who had bet on Kalshi on the leader’s ouster expected a payout, but that never happened. Instead, market trading was paused while the company conducted a “further assessment of the situation.”

Later Tarek Mansour, CEO of Kalshi wrote on X that the company would refund the fees collected in the Khamenei market.

“We do not mention markets directly related to death,” Mansour wrote. “When there are markets where possible outcomes involve death, we design the rules to prevent people from profiting from death. That’s what we’ve done here.”

In messages sent to users who placed bets before and after the Iranian leader’s death, Kalshi said it will issue partial refunds. The fine print in the betting rules on the event has been changed so that it does not conflict with US laws banning transactions related to death.

Kalshi’s decision caused an uproar among traders, who felt they had been duped. They were all the more furious because the company had been heavily promoting the Khamenei market on social media for days.

“It’s wild to get a 100% correct prediction because of a ‘death carveout’ in the fine print,” said a user who goes by “pepe” on the online forum Discord for Kalshi traders. “Centralized oracles will always favor compliance over reality.”

Others were less generous, mock Kalshi’s actions in the Khamenei market as proof that the platform is a ‘scam’.

Amanda Fischer, a former official at the Securities and Exchange Commission who now works at the financial reform group Better Markets, told NPR that Congress must take action to end “perverse incentives and chaos caused by betting on death and destruction.”

She added: “Prediction markets promote opportunities to bet on events that can only be seen as a proxy for war or assassination. The confusion and outrage over how the Khamenei-related betting would resolve underlines that this betting market should not exist in the first place.”