- Users of prediction market platform Polymarket are callously wagering on the spread of the disastrous California wildfires, which have killed at least five people and forced more than 100,000 to evacuate.
The deadly California wildfires that have claimed lives, destroyed communities, and forced thousands to flee their homes to safety have spurred Polymarket gamblers to wager on the devastation left in their wake. Users have placed bets on about 20 predictions as of Thursday, ranging from whether the catastrophe will spread to Santa Monica to the number of acres the blaze will engulf by Sunday. About 20% of users have predicted decimation up to 80,000 acres, and some of these predictions have accumulated pools exceeding $100,000.
Users who invest in the correct outcomes on the betting platform—all bets are done in cryptocurrency—will profit from wagers on the severity and duration of the fires.
As Polymarket gamblers seek new opportunities, LA communities are mourning their dead and the ruins of their homes and neighborhoods. The blazes have spread across the Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles and have engulfed more than 17,000 acres, destroyed at least 2,000 homes, killed at least five, and forced more than 100,000 people to evacuate.
On Wednesday afternoon, Polymarket shared on X a 91% chance the Palisades first burned more than 10,000 acres by Friday. The platform has a designated tab on its website for the fires and has been posting updates on related bets on social media.
“That's 12x the size of Central Park,” the post said.
View this interactive chart on Fortune.com
The 'gamblification' of disasters
Polymarket’s decision to allow individuals to bet on and profit from the disaster that has claimed lives, homes, and futures has raised ethical concerns, and users are facing backlash and condemnation.
“The gamblification of everything is Evil in [the] fullest sense of the word," Bates College environmental studies professor Tyler Austin Harper said in an X post. "Capital-E Evil."
But one Polymarket backer, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, has previously supported controversial wagers, including users being able to bet on the timing of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, a conflict that has recently killed up to 4,000 people. He argued Polymarket users see the site as a news—not a gambling—platform, where people’s opinions (in the form of wagers) are more accurate than internet speculation because the stakes are higher.
“It's not about ‘make money from bad stuff happening’,” Buterin wrote on X in September. “It's about creating an environment where speech has consequences (so both unjustified fearmongering *and* unjustified complacency are punished), without relying on governmental or corporate censors.”
Buterin did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
The Polymarket predictions also include wagers on the likelihood of Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass leaving office before April. Last year, Bass approved a $17 million cut to the fire department’s overtime budget, which allocated money to training and fire prevention. Ahead of the fires’ rapid eruption Tuesday, Bass was in Ghana on a diplomatic visit, leaving City Council president Marqueece Harris-Dawson in charge during the disaster’s early moments. A spokesperson for Bass did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
The consequences of the yet-to-be-contained wildfires will likely be dire. Insurance carriers have fled California in recent years due in part to previous natural disasters that wiped out company profits. State Farm, California’s largest insurer, announced last year it would end coverage for 30,000 home insurance policies, including 1,600 in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. As a result, many in the LA area will be without resources to rebuild their homes after the inferno is contained. Insured losses are, by some estimations, expected to exceed $8 billion.
The growing interest in Polymarket
Founded in 2020, Polymarket has become a popular tool for crowdsourcing public opinion and real-time data, backed by billionaire investor and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel and advised by FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver. Beyond trivial wagers on how times this month Elon Musk will post on X or who will win the Oscar for best picture, the platform also allows users to wager on current events, including $848,000 in wagers on whether Donald Trump will end the war in Gaza within 100 days of his presidency.
Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, users wagered a whopping $3.2 billion on which candidate would emerge victorious, and the trader who invested millions in the prediction that Trump would win made $85 million from the wager.
Polymarket put a disclaimer on its page for wildfire predictions, telling users the goal of its platform is to create “accurate, unbiased forecasts” for important moments. “The devastating Pacific Palisades fire is one such event, for which Polymarket can yield invaluable real-time answers to those directly impacted in ways traditional media cannot,” the disclaimer said. “Note: There are no fees on this market.”
The site is likely not sourcing predictions from local users, however. Since 2022, Polymarket has not allowed U.S. bettors on its platform because of heavy scrutiny from derivatives regulator the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Polymarket said it does not bring in profits from its markets.
“Polymarket charges no fees—and generates no revenue—from these markets, and provides them as a service to those looking for unbiased and up to date information during fast moving events,” a Polymarket spokesperson told Fortune in a statement.
