Polymarket Pulls Bet on Nuclear Detonation in 2026
Source: 404 Media
For a few hours on Tuesday, Polymarket hosted a bet about the possibility of nuclear war in 2026. The market asked the question “Nuclear weapon detonation by …?” and racked up close to a million dollars in trading volume before Polymarket took the unusual step to remove the market from its website. It did not simply close down the bet, but it’s been “archived” meaning that a record of it no longer exists. It’s strange as many older and paid out bets remain on the site.
Pulling a bet like this is unusual and the company did not respond to 404 Media’s request for an explanation as to why. Word of the nuke bet drew wide attention online from critics already upset about Polymarket for its place in the depravity economy.
“I have not seen anything like this before,” Jon Wolfsthal, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama and a member of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, told 404 Media. “As a citizen, it seems dangerous to enable people in power to place bets anonymously on things that might happen, creating an incentive to act on a basis of personal gain and not the national interest.”
Polymarket doesn’t often balk at bets on violence and war. There are multiple markets covering the wars in Ukraine and Iran and also many other bets about nuclear detonations. “Will a US ally get a nuke before 2027?” and “Russia nuclear test by …?” are both still actively trading. An older version of the “nuclear weapons detonation” is still on the site and did almost $3 million in trading before closing and paying out at the end of the 2025. It’s hosted a bet on the same question every year for the past few years.
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Read more: https://www.404media.co/polymarket-pulls-bet-on-nuclear-detonation-in-2026/
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