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Lawmakers are under pressure to take action following revelations that a major betting platform is allowing users to gamble on the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie.
The site, Polymarket, has opened betting on whether Guthrie’s alleged kidnapper will be apprehended by Saturday, February 28, effectively turning an ongoing missing-person investigation into a live betting market.
To date, more than $188,000 has been wagered on this case, a sum nearly double the $100,000 reward the FBI is offering for information to aid in the search for the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie.
“Wagering on the outcome of an elderly woman’s kidnapping is both appalling and insensitive,” stated Evan Nierman, founder and CEO of the global crisis PR firm Red Banyan, in an interview with the Daily Mail.
“Even if one believes prediction markets have value in various situations, this scenario clearly crosses an ethical boundary for most individuals,” he added.
He called for laws around prediction markets to be updated and added: ‘There is also real danger that deranged people may be incentivized to commit crimes with the hope of profiting from prediction markets.’
As of Thursday, Polymarket traders were pricing the chance of an arrest by February 28 at just 2 percent – down sharply from a 57 percent peak earlier this month.
Anyone who backed an arrest when the odds were far higher earlier in February now faces losing their stake if no breakthrough comes, while those betting on no arrest stand to profit.
Polymarket is facing backlash for allowing users to profit from bets tied to the alleged kidnapping of the elderly mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie
Over $188,000 has been staked on the outcome so far – almost double the $100,000 FBI reward being offered for information in the search for the elderly mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie
Outrage erupted after gamblers were allowed to place bets on the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie (pictured)
Prediction markets such as Polymarket and rival Kalshi have surged in popularity in recent years, allowing users to bet on everything from elections to military action. They are frequently controversial.
Just this week, Kalshi said it suspended and fined Artem Kaptur, an editor for YouTube star MrBeast, for insider trading.
The platform said he placed a series of unusually accurate bets tied to MrBeast video outcomes while having access to non-public information through his role on the production team. Kalshi banned him for two years, fined him $20,000 and reported the case to federal regulators.
In a separate case, Kalshi also suspended and fined Kyle Langford, a former candidate for California governor, for insider trading violations. The company did not publicly detail the trades involved but said the matter was referred to regulators.
Legal and industry analysts say these incidents – plus allowing bets on cases like Guthrie’s – also expose how lightly regulated some of these platforms remain.
Daniel O’Boyle, senior analyst at InGame Intel, told the Daily Mail: ‘There is nothing stopping Polymarket from offering bets on crimes and kidnappings, because they’re unregulated.’
When it comes to oversight, O’Boyle says there is little in place.
‘They don’t have a responsible trading page, they don’t ban insiders, they don’t have know-your-customer checks, so they’re not even sure when someone is an insider, they just have a house rule against market manipulation.’
He added: ‘Aside from the general ethical question of whether it is right to be able to bet money on a subject like this, it also risks creating perverse incentives, where people interfere in the case.
‘Law enforcement could make decisions that compromise an investigation because of the existence of a market like this.’
‘Prediction markets don’t just reflect reality – they can influence it,’ Braden Perry, litigation, regulatory and government investigations attorney, told the Daily Mail.
Join the debate
Should betting on real-life tragedies like kidnappings ever be allowed, or does it cross a moral line?
Prediction markets such as Polymarket and rival Kalshi have surged in popularity in recent years
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan
‘If traders stand to profit from escalation or delay, that raises real moral hazard concerns. Even the perception of that risk is corrosive when public safety and interests are involved.’
The general public is equally horrified by the bet. ‘Anyone making wagers on a woman’s life is a demon,’ a user on X said of the bet.
‘This seems so very morally wrong and unethical,’ someone else wrote.
‘This is crazy. We’re going to have people kidnapping people to rig their bets,’ another said.
In January, an anonymous user turned a $32,000 bet into more than $400,000 by correctly betting Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro would be captured. Most of the trades came just hours before the surprise US operation that removed him from power.
Earlier this month, online sleuths spotted one anonymous account that correctly predicted nearly every outcome tied to the Super Bowl halftime show.
The account – created just one day before the Super Bowl – placed close to $70,000 in wagers, all focused exclusively on halftime-show markets, and walked away with roughly $17,000 in profit, a return of more than 24 percent.
Kalshi directly addressed the insider trading involving the Mr Beast staffer and former candidate for California governor.
‘No financial exchange is immune from bad actors. Not stock exchanges, not banks, not prediction markets,’ Bobby DeNault, who leads Kalshi’s enforcement efforts, said in a post on Wednesday.
‘We’re committed to deterring and finding the bad actors, manipulators, and those who willingly cheat.’
Kalshi says it has launched more than 200 investigations into potential rule violations over the past year, and at least a dozen have turned into active cases.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Pima County Sheriff’s Department and representatives for the Guthrie family.