Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Nick Cleveland-Stout
“On November 15, as Russian forces were advancing on the outskirts of the town of Myrnohrad in eastern Ukraine, retail investors placed risky bets in real time on the battle using Polymarket …. If Russia took the city by nightfall — an event that seemed exceedingly unlikely to most observers — a handful of retail investors stood to earn a profit of as much as 33,000% on the battle from the comfort of their homes. When nightfall came, these longshot gamblers miraculously won big, though not because Russia took the town (as of writing, Ukraine is still fighting for Myrnohrad). Instead, it was because of an apparent intervention by a staffer at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a D.C.-based think tank that produces daily interactive maps of the conflict in Ukraine that Polymarket often relies on to determine the outcome of bets placed on the war.” (12/11/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/isw-polymarket-ukraine-war-map/