A Polymarket contract that let users bet on whether seven men accused of sexually assaulting a Cornell student would face felony sex-crime charges has been pulled from the platform following public backlash. The market, posted Sept. 30 and set to close Jan. 31, 2027, had drawn more than $450,000 in trading volume before it disappeared.
The betting contract was first reported by Front Office Sports, which put the final trading volume at $451,633 before the market was removed. According to the Associated Press, a Polymarket spokesperson said the company pulled the listing after hearing an outpouring of criticism, stating, “we believe in the wisdom of crowds, have heard them loud and clear, and removed the market.” The contract had only existed on Polymarket's international platform and was never offered on its U.S. app, per Front Office Sports.
Before it vanished, traders had priced in roughly a 28% chance the market would resolve “yes” by its Jan. 31, 2027 close date, Front Office Sports reported. A Polymarket spokesperson separately defended the broader practice, telling the outlet that such markets “bring objective, data-driven insight into how a matter like this is moving through the legal system.”
The Allegations Behind the Bet
The underlying case centers on a woman identified in court papers only as Jane Doe, who alleges that seven men from Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity chapter assaulted her for hours on Oct. 19, 2024, according to the BBC. She filed a civil lawsuit against the university alleging she was drugged and raped at the fraternity house and that Cornell failed to protect her or adequately discipline the men involved, the BBC reported. All seven men have denied her allegations, with the Associated Press reporting that their accounts describe the interactions as either consensual or deny involvement altogether.
Cornell has said a panel of trained faculty and staff imposed sanctions against some of the men, including expulsions and suspensions, per the BBC's reporting. Separately, CNN reported that New York prosecutors have reopened an investigation into the case, with a grand jury set to review whether criminal charges are warranted. As of CNN's late-September report, none of the seven fraternity members had been criminally charged.
A Second Cornell Market Stayed Up
Even after the sexual-assault contract came down, a different Polymarket listing tied to Cornell remained active. A market asking whether Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff would be out of his job by Oct. 31 was still live as of Tuesday and had accumulated more than $10,700 in trading volume, according to the Latin Times. That contrast has sharpened questions about which bets on institutions and individuals Polymarket considers acceptable.
Not every prediction-market operator takes the same approach. A Kalshi spokesperson told Front Office Sports the company would not consider offering a comparable market on the Cornell case, and the Latin Times reported that Kalshi maintains explicit prohibitions on contracts tied to deaths, kidnappings, violent acts and rocket strikes.
Betting Boom Has Outpaced the Guardrails
The episode lands amid explosive growth in prediction markets generally. Combined global monthly trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket more than doubled from $26 billion in May 2026 to $53 billion in July, according to Pew Research Center. Sports has become the most heavily traded topic on both platforms by a wide margin, Pew found, with sports trading alone topping $58 billion on Kalshi and nearing $22 billion on Polymarket in June and July.
Volume dipped only slightly in August, closing at a combined $47 billion across the two platforms, per the same Pew analysis. Polymarket US, a CFTC-regulated version launched in late 2025 after the original international platform ran into legal trouble, has also grown quickly — its share of Polymarket's total trading volume climbed from 4% in January 2026 to 39% in July, Pew reported. The AP noted that prediction markets let users trade on the outcome of future events, with sports accounting for a major share of that activity nationwide.
