012: Why Leaders are Turning to Gambling to Bet Which Way the World Will Burn

There’s been enough warning from fiction and indeed reality that people should really know better than to reduce the horror of conflict to gaming, petty bets and the chaos of chance. But perhaps ‘leaders’ really do think the gods play dice and now, as global institutions become increasingly unreliable, they want in.

Things look pretty ‘yucky’ if you, for instance, respect the dignity of human life and though this isn’t anywhere near the first time finance has been tied up in geopolitics, the incentives are all backwards now, fuelling misinformation, deception and misappropriation in the name of a quick crypto-buck. 

Links:

• 'Unauthorized' Edit to Ukraine's Frontline Maps Point to Polymarket's War Betting, 404 Media: https://www.404media.co/unauthorized-edit-to-ukraines-frontline-maps-point-to-polymarkets-war-betting/
• Institute for The Study of War: https://understandingwar.org/ 
• The Polymarket Effect: How Prediction Markets Are Beating The Experts, Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonwingard/2025/11/19/the-polymarket-effect-how-prediction-markets-are-beating-the-experts/
• How the Trump Whale and Prediction Markets Beat the Pollsters in 2024, Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/how-the-trump-whale-and-prediction-markets-beat-the-pollsters-in-2024-dd11ec4e?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqeH1TI6Po6c_Ztr0l0voyhPfeAozcF_RHfJiu9zSQXT5KxGQFR_lYDXAzE0Cw8%3D&gaa_ts=694649c3&gaa_sig=ap1q4d4NOKg-UohvdZv-8fI_BySV6y0o1O_HI8iDwa0TtkNG50snxiApdJ1viRVncs1hQWDI28kjzDrZuCDjDQ%3D%3D
• Disaster Map Foundation: https://info.petabencana.id/ypb
• New App Lets Users Bet on Deadly Conflicts in Real Time, Futurism: https://futurism.com/future-society/polymarket-polyglobe-gambling
• Deep State Live: https://deepstatemap.live/en#6/49.4383200/32.0526800
  
• Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_Crake