A Guardian investigation reveals how the prediction market can shape news – and how it rules on ‘the truth’
“Horekunden” was rapidly losing patience.
His frustration was with the Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank which produces a daily map of the frontline in Ukraine.
For Horekunden, and other anonymous gamblers, the map was a “disjointed, incoherent mess … like the painting of a five-year-old”. Therefore it was no use to them in their aim: to settle a bet on the online prediction market Polymarket.
The map they were unhappy with depicted the city of Kostyantynivka, which Ukrainian troops have been holding for five months amid shelling and swarms of drones. Thousands of civilians still live there.
