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As the U.S. bombed Iran, thousands of miles away behind their screens, people were placing bets.
Would the U.S. invade?
Would there be a nuclear detonation?
Would Iran's supreme leader be ousted or killed?
They placed hundreds of millions of dollars of bets in total, perhaps as much as 2 billion, according to NBC.
And some of these people won big.
This was conflict as financial opportunity, or even entertainment.
Welcome to the world of prediction markets, where you can bet on anything from the silly — is the Earth flat,
who's the sexiest man alive — to the sinister.
Advocates of these markets say they make more accurate predictions
of what's likely to happen in the world than politicians or polls or the media.
Their critics say they're enabling insider trading and encouraging people to gamble money they don't have.
From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redman.