Polymarket users reportedly threatened to kill an Israeli journalist after his coverage of an Iranian missile strike in Israel apparently jeopardised a number of big-money wagers.
On March 10 Emanuel Fabian, a reporter for the Times of Israel, covered an Iranian missile strike outside of the city of Beit Shemesh as the war between the US and Israel, and Iran raged on.
However, Fabian revealed today that his coverage was met with a barrage of demands, threats, and misinformation from apparent Polymarket users.
The first email he received, written in Hebrew, asked him to change his report to state that the “missile” was instead a fragment from one of Israel’s missile interceptors.
The email claimed this was the finding of the Beit Shemesh municipality and Israel’s national medical emergency body. However, rather than retract is report, Fabian, doubled down, clarifying that, based on reports from the Israeli military and footage of the strike, the incident involved a missile warhead and not interceptor fragments.
Fabian claimed the footage shows an explosion consistent with a warhead packed with hundreds of kilograms of explosives.Read more: Nigel Farage aide George Cottrell bets US war will last four more months
He continued to receive emails and messages from Discord and WhatsApp users asking him to make the same correction.
Fabian then noticed that multiple X accounts involved with Polymarket gambling were replying to his posts with similar correction demands.
He deduced that his harassers were trying to resolve a bet on Polymarket, with $14 million worth of volume, that asked if Iran would strike Israel on March 10.
The respondents appeared desperate for the strike to be classified as fragments of an interceptor, as that would resolve the market to “No.”
Polymarket users threatened to kill Israeli journalist
Five days after the missile struck, the demands became more threatening.
One WhatsApp user named “Haim” threatened to kill Fabian unless he changed his reporting, and repeatedly gave him correction deadlines.
“After you make us lose $900,000 we will invest no less than that to finish you,” one of Haim’s messages read.
Another said, “You are choosing to go to war knowing that you will lose your life as you’ve grown accustomed to it — for nothing.”
Haim then began to list specific details related to Fabian’s family and home in another threat to his life.
Read more: Kalshi uses ‘death carve-out’ to avoid paying out on Ali Khamenei ousting
Shortly after Haim’s messages, someone posing as a lawyer rang Fabian and told him that he was now the subject of an investigation into his supposed Polymarket market manipulation.
Fabian ended the call and reported the situation to the police, who are now investigating his claims.
Fabian concerned journalists might be weak to Polymarket users
Fabian wrote, “The attempt by these gamblers to pressure me to change my reporting so that they would win their bet did not and will not succeed.”
He worries, however, that “other journalists may not be as ethical if they are promised some of the winnings.”
Indeed, he detailed how one of his colleagues from another publication was approached by someone asking him to encourage Fabian to change the details of the story.
Fabian informed them about the Polymarket bet, and his colleague confronted the individual, who admitted they’d placed a bet on Iran not being struck by Israel.
The confronted individual reportedly offered a cut of his winnings to Fabian’s colleague if they managed to convince Fabian to make the correction.
At the time of writing, the Polymarket bet is still unresolved and is waiting for a final resolution from UMA, the platform’s oracle system which allows tokenholders to resolve disputes about various outcomes.
The price of the “Yes” odds changed as the results continued to be disputed.Read more: Are Polymarket and Kalshi decentralized?
It now has over $15 million in volume and has resolved to “Yes” twice in the past two resolutions.
Prediction markets rife with insider trading
Fabian’s story offers a glimpse into the scale of insider trading on Polymarket and tactics employed by bettors to pressure people with the power to sway a market.
Polymarket and Kalshi both host bets on the outcomes and potential for military action, as well as pop culture happenings and sports bets.
Several large and timely bets made before military actions have prompted suspicions of rampant insider trading and leaking of confidential documents.
Just last month, Israel’s government arrested one of its reserve soldiers and an associate of theirs in connection with a series of Polymarket bets that gambled on Israel striking Iran in 2025.
The pair is suspected of using secret information to make the bets and, in the process, threaten the national security of Israel.
Protos has reached out to Fabian for comment and will update this piece should we hear anything back.
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Source: https://protos.com/polymarket-users-try-manipulate-israeli-journalist-with-death-threats-report/
