Overview
- Polymarket opened an international market on Sept. 30 that let users bet on whether seven Cornell fraternity members would face felony sex-crime charges by January 2027.
- Traders placed roughly $451,633 on the contract and were pricing the chance of charges at about 28 percent before the page was taken down.
- Polymarket initially defended the market as providing objective, data-driven insight but then removed the contract after press reports and activist pressure and declined to explain the reversal.
- Survivor advocates launched a ‘No Gambling on Gang Rape!’ petition that targeted high-profile Polymarket endorsers, including LeBron James, pressuring them over reputational ties to the platform.
- Reporting shows other criminal-case markets remained accessible to non-U.S. users, and lawmakers, rivals such as Kalshi, and monitoring firms like BETINT have raised concerns about interference, insider trading and the need for clearer oversight.