Protests in Tehran and northern Iran took place on Sunday with a complete internet blackout.
- ‘Papa John’s Watch’ tracker activity showed an increase of nearly 200% on Monday as trading volume in the U.S.–Iran event contracts at Polymarket reached around $13.19 million in total.
- A contract predicting U.S. strikes by June 30 traded at approximately 66%, while Israeli actions were estimated at 30% to 50% for late January.
- Historical precedents include successful predictions linked to U.S. military actions in Panama and during the Gulf War.
Trading activity on prediction markets surged this week as contracts tied to potential U.S. military action against Iran drew heavy volume, while unconventional indicators like the so-called “Papa John’s Watch” also spiked.
On Polymarket, total trading volume across U.S.–Iran event contracts reached around $13.19 million as concerns over scenarios from potential U.S. strikes to leadership change in Tehran rose to the fore. One contract titled “US strikes Iran by …?” traded around 66% for a June 30 deadline, while distinct markets on Israeli action by late January traded between 30% and 50%.
Papa John’s Watch announced on X that 2.3 miles from the Pentagon, there was “a high activity spike at 192%” on Sunday evening.
What Is Pentagon Pizza?
The spike also sparked new interest in the “Pentagon Pizza” meme, an old internet theory that bizarre after-hours pizza orders around the Pentagon can sometimes precede significant geopolitical events. Pentagon Pizza Watch indicators had flagged a surge in activity before U.S. airstrikes were carried on Venezuela, as per ABC News. Previously, the predictions were proven correct, such as the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama and the 1989 Desert Storm operations during the Gulf War.
Accounts like Pentagon Pizza Report posted images of Google “popular times” panels for neighboring chains that read multiple locations were “busier than usual.” Google’s “popular times” data is generally based on aggregated, anonymized sets of location signals that can vary for a variety of reasons, such as weather and even an event taking place in the area.
Protests in Tehran and northern Iran took place on Sunday with a complete internet blackout, as activists and medical sources said they had tallied scores of casualties from security force crackdowns.
Polymarket Traders Predicted Maduro’s Arrest
This comes after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was taken into U.S custody last week. Three wallets were later found to have made a profit of $630,000 right before Maduro’s arrest. Lookonchain described it as an ‘insider activity’ in which people with knowledge of the events make quick money on crypto betting platforms. A week later, U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) revealed a three-page bill called the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, which would ban U.S. officials from trading on prediction platforms like Polymarket.
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