This episode of the story is brought to you by HSBC UK.
From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story.
I'm Manveen Rana.
Watching the war in the Middle East unfold has caused shock and horror around the world.
But for some, it's also offered an opportunity.
Deadly American strikes and some people may have made money from them.
In the murky world of online prediction markets on sites like Polymarket and Kalshi,
users can place bets on many aspects of the war.
Polymarket takes bets on anything from who will win the NCAA tournament
to what will top the Netflix movie charts.
And increasingly popular are trades like this, a US and Iran ceasefire by June 30th.
If you take a look at any one of these sites,
you'll see people betting on when the war will end,
when traffic will be able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz,
and when US ground forces might enter Iranian territory.
A number of punters have reportedly made about a million US dollars
by correctly predicting when the United States would strike Iran at the weekend.
It's become such an eerily precise predictor of what's about to happen
that the founder of one of these sites, Polymarket,
claims it's the most accurate forecast of geopolitical events in existence.