Nice money, made on the last hundred yards before the US-Iran truce. The TACO phenomenon, a possible reason
Several new accounts on prediction platform Polymarket made highly-timed bets on a US-Iran truce on Tuesday, posting hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits, The Guardian reports.
The bets were made just hours before US President Donald Trump announced a 14-day ceasefire, although he had issued dramatic threats before the ultimatum expired and there were few signs that a deal between the two camps was possible.
Twelve hours before the deadline, Trump had written on his social network that “an entire civilization will die tonight” if Iran did not meet his demand to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
An analysis by The Guardian showed that at least 50 accounts had bet significant sums on a deal before the White House leader announced the truce.
These were the first bets made by these new accounts on the platform which is banned in Romania and other European countries.
Polymarket is an online platform that allows its users to offer bets on various events with odds set by them. It essentially works as a betting “exchange” where users can bid on various events. The probabilities are then calculated based on the volume of transactions on the outcome of a particular event.
Nice gains from the US-Iran truce
An account created 8 1/2 hours before Trump's announcement placed about $72,000 worth of bets at an average price of 8.8 cents.
The entry amount for each betting event varies between $0 and $1, reflecting a 0% to 100% probability of what users believe might happen.
This Polymarket user then cashed in a $200,000 win.
Another user registered on the platform on Monday traded on this exact event, making a profit of $125,000.
An account created 12 minutes after Trump's post placed $31,908 in yes bets at 33.7 cents and is estimated to have made a profit of $48,500.
The higher price for a truce at that time may have reflected diplomatic efforts by the government in Islamabad to persuade the US leader to delay the promised bombings.
The TACO phenomenon
The Guardian notes that users may have made these bets based on the fact that Trump would back down, given his habit during his second term of making bold threats only to back down later, a phenomenon that his critics have dubbed “Trump Always Chickens Out,” or TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out).
Even though some users made nice profits, Polymarket did not release payments at the moment because it labeled the truce as “disputed”, given that Iran was still imposing restrictions on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and attacks were continuing in the Middle East. Dispute resolution may take up to 48 hours.
Account data is anonymous and a person can have several wallets on the platform. Only Polymarket has the internal data necessary to determine whether these were new or existing users opening additional accounts. The platform did not want to comment for the British publication.
Other suspicious episodes
According to the cited source, the trading pattern of the newly created accounts, which place strategic and timely bets, is reminiscent of similar episodes on the platform.
The newly created accounts placed large bets hours before the January 2026 capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits.
Similar groups of accounts also repeatedly profited from well-timed bets on military actions involving Iran.
Such bets have repeatedly raised questions about the possibility of some traders using insider information to profit in these prediction markets.
