Unusual market bets before Trump’s Iran comments spark insider trading allegations

Traders appear to have known something the public did not, and they placed their bets accordingly.

Lawmakers, economists, and market observers have once again accused President Donald Trump of insider trading after a series of oddly timed trades on prediction markets and oil futures were made shortly before the president made remarks regarding the Iran war.

On Polymarket, a website where users bet real money on the outcome of world events, eight newly created accounts placed a combined $70,000 in wagers on whether a ceasefire would be declared in Iran before the end of March.

If that outcome comes true, those bets could pay out $820,000.

All eight accounts were created around March 21, the same period when Trump posted on social media suggesting the U.S. was thinking about “winding down our great Military efforts,” marking a significant shift in his position on the conflict.

Following this activity, Polymarket’s own odds on a ceasefire happening before March 31 jumped sharply, from 6% on March 21 to 24% by Monday. It is currently at 11%. More than $21 million is currently being wagered on that outcome.

Oil markets surge minutes before Trump’s announcement

The concerns grew sharper after unusual activity was spotted in global oil markets just minutes before Trump announced a temporary halt to airstrikes.

On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. and Iran had held “very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities” over the previous two days.

But market data shows that trading activity had already spiked nearly 15 minutes earlier, as traders placed 734 bets on WTI crude oil contracts.

Within one minute, that figure jumped to 2,168, worth around $170 million. In the same two-minute window, Brent crude trades surged from 20 to more than 1,650, totaling roughly $150 million in contracts.

Rachel Winter, a partner at the wealth management firm Killik & Co., told the BBC the timing was hard to ignore.

“Just before he posted on social media, quite a lot of people took out contracts that would allow them to profit from the oil price falling,” she said. “So there has been some speculation about insider trading. We don’t know if that’s true, but hopefully there will be some sort of investigation into that.”

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy went further, claiming that around five minutes before Trump’s post, someone bought $1.5 billion in S&P 500 futures while selling $192 million in oil futures.

He publicly asked: “Who was it?” Murphy, along with Texas Representative Greg Casar, introduced the BETS OFF Act last week, legislation that would make it illegal to bet on war or government decisions when the person placing the wager already knows the outcome.

The White House rejected any suggestion of wrongdoing.

A spokesperson said: “The White House does not tolerate any administration official illegally profiteering off of insider knowledge, and any implication that officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless.”

Polymarket pulls nuclear betting contract

This is not the first time Polymarket has come under the spotlight. According to a Cryptopolitan report, the platform quietly removed a contract that allowed users to bet on whether a nuclear weapon would be detonated this year.

The page now simply reads: “The event has been archived.” Before it was pulled, the market had already generated more than $650,000 in trading volume.

The platform also deleted an X post that had put the probability of a nuclear detonation in 2026 at 22%.

The removal came after a troubling episode on February 28, when the U.S. launched airstrikes on Tehran and other Iranian cities, and hours before those strikes began, six anonymous Polymarket accounts had already placed “Yes” bets on whether the U.S. would attack Iran.

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