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Tesla has reopened reservations for its long-delayed Roadster, requiring a $5,000 refundable deposit followed by an additional $45,000 wire transfer within 10 days. The company plans to unveil the car's pricing, specifications and production timeline at an event near Waco, Texas on October 1, having first taken $50,000 deposits for the same car back in 2017.
Polymarket has reportedly held talks with the European Commission, ESMA and the UK's FCA to be regulated under MiFID financial rules rather than gambling law. The prediction-market platform hopes this reclassification would let it reverse bans imposed by Spain and France, which currently require it to hold a gambling license to operate.
Polymarket's aggressive push for growth reportedly outpaced its fraud controls, creating vulnerabilities that bad actors were able to exploit. The prediction market platform's scaling priorities appear to have left compliance and security measures lagging behind user growth.
Prediction market Polymarket allowed a scheme involving stolen debit cards to proceed despite internal warnings, with CEO Shayne Coplan reportedly dismissing concerns raised about the fraud. The company is now moving to strengthen its executive leadership team as it positions itself for a potential public listing.
Polymarket runs a daily newsletter summarizing news events tied to its betting markets, resembling a political news roundup rather than a financial disclosure. Both Polymarket and rival Kalshi have struck data-sharing partnerships with major media companies—Polymarket with Dow Jones and Substack, Kalshi with CNN, CNBC, and Fox—embedding themselves into roughly a quarter of top S&P 500 communications firms, though none of these deals involve actual trading.
Documents obtained by WIRED via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that CFTC chairman Michael Selig authorized at least three previously unreported investigations into trading on Polymarket. One order, signed in early May, targeted possible insider trading tied to Biden-era pardon markets, following an NPR report on a trader who made over $300,000 betting correctly on pardons for figures like Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff. A second order in late May authorized scrutiny of Iran-related event contracts, coming shortly after a 60 Minutes segment exposed accounts that earned $2.4 million with a suspicious 98 percent win rate.
LeBron James has become Polymarket's first individually signed NBA athlete partner, according to The Athletic. The announcement sparked backlash on social media, with fans accusing him of 'selling out' to a betting-adjacent platform despite his wealth.
Prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket are becoming central to how political campaigns and media frame the midterm elections, with real-money bets on outcomes shaping coverage and strategy. Alongside their growing influence, lobbying spending tied to these platforms has surged, and questions about insider trading on political events are intensifying.
WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast covers two prediction-market controversies: Kalshi issued a lifetime ban to former Congressman George Santos, and a Google engineer faces an insider-trading case tied to Polymarket. The episode also examines a reverse-engineered Flock AI person-search tool and debate over labeling AI agents as 'rogue.'
Michele Spagnuolo, the Google engineer charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering over Polymarket bets made using the alias 'AlphaRaccoon,' has filed a motion to dismiss. His lawyers argue the wagers, which reportedly netted him over $1.2 million including a correct bet on singer D4vd, are informal gambling rather than regulated financial swaps, and that U.S. authorities lack jurisdiction since he is a non-U.S. citizen.
Polymarket has reportedly raised $300 million from 1789 Capital, an investment fund with Donald Trump Jr. as a partner, as part of a roughly $1 billion funding round according to the Wall Street Journal. This adds to a prior $200 million investment from the same fund, which has also backed other controversial ventures like the Enhanced Games.
Michele Spagnuolo, the Google engineer charged with insider trading over Polymarket wagers, has filed a motion to dismiss the case. His attorneys don't dispute he profited using internal Google information, but argue his bets—including one on singer D4vd becoming Google's most-searched person of 2025—were unregulated gambling, not financial instruments covered by the Commodities Exchange Act.