Polymarket briefly allowed users to wager on exactly which day the U.S. military would confirm the rescue of two downed airmen in Iran — and it took a congressman publicly calling the platform "DISGUSTING" to get it removed.

The Market

An American F-15E fighter jet was shot down over Iran last week. One crew member was rescued; the other's status was unknown. During the search-and-rescue operation, Polymarket listed a market letting users bet on when the U.S. would officially confirm saving both airmen.

Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts and Marine veteran, posted on X: "There is an ongoing search and rescue operation for a missing American service member… They could be your neighbor, a friend, a family member. And people are betting on whether or not they'll be saved."

Polymarket responded by removing the market and admitting it "should not have been posted," pledging to investigate how it passed internal safeguards.

The Deeper Problem

The bigger issue: war bets didn't go away. When Moulton first posted, Polymarket had 219 active war-category markets. By the next day, 223 were live.

"Polymarket didn't take that market down because it violated their standards," Moulton told CNBC. "They took it down because we called them out."

The episode is fueling a broader legislative push. Congressional Democrats recently introduced a bill to ban prediction markets from accepting wagers on elections, war, and government actions. Several senators have separately urged the CFTC to prohibit markets tied to individual deaths.

Moulton also named Donald Trump Jr. — an investor in Polymarket — as someone who "may have access to intelligence that isn't public yet," adding a conflict-of-interest dimension to the controversy.

The CFTC, which has the authority to regulate these platforms, has so far taken no action on war markets.