People have bet $1M on hantavirus on Polymarket. How did we get here?

Polymarket has been steadily rising in popularity in recent years, but it surged in 2024 when it became a breeding ground for bets on election outcomes. 

The predictive market, similar to other platforms like Kalshi, lets betters place odds on nearly anything – the guest list for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding, how many tweets Elon Musk will send out this week, and if "Jesus Christ will return before 2027."

But a new bet toes the line between casual cruelty and plain apathy: Will hantavirus reach pandemic status in 2026? As of 2 p.m. ET on May 7, it is the top trending bet on the platform, with nearly $1 million in shares purchased.

It's not the first time profiteers have used Polymarket to cash in on disaster. In 2023, interest in speculative betting markets surged after the missing Titan submersible − on which all five passengers died − went viral.

So how did we get here? Are our empathy meters broken, or is this the result of financial desperation in an increasingly divided economy, where the rich keep getting richer while some Americans struggle to afford the rising cost of living?

Financial worries are surging amid the Iran war, skyrocketing gas prices and the upcoming November midterm elections. More Americans say they are worse off financially today than at any point in the past 25 years. More than half (55%) of Americans say their financial situation is deteriorating, according to a new Gallup poll.

On the social media platform X, users called the bet "dystopian and insane." "Like betting on war, this is incredibly bleak and morally bankrupt," one user wrote. Others called for the predictive market platforms to be "eradicated."

Ethicists and psychologists say the use of predictive markets like Polymarket to bet on the hantavirus falls in a moral grey area. It comes down to broader cultural shifts: the gamification of everyday life and emotional desensitization from repeated exposure to stress and crises.

"There is not one explanation which applies uniformly to every better, but rather different people make such bets for different reasons," explains Christian B. Miller, professor of philosophy, ethics and religion at Wake Forest University. And, betting on terrible outcomes doesn't signify what the better actually wants to happen.

"They could think there will be an epidemic, and even want to make money, but not want people to suffer," Miller clarifies.

Brad Fulton, associate professor of management and social policy at Indiana University Bloomington, says placing a bet can function less like gambling and more like posting an opinion by "literally putting their money where their mouth is."

However, turning world events into wagers can deplete empathy, Fulton warns.

"We now live in information environments where a disease outbreak registers as a data point before it registers as a story about human suffering," he says.

What is hantavirus?

Hantaviruses are a group of viruses that naturally infect rodents, sometimes long‑term without apparent illness, and are occasionally transmitted to humans, according to the World Health Organization.

Five people have been confirmed to have the typically rodent-borne virus, and three others are suspected in the outbreak, according to the World Health Organization. Three people have died. Residents of multiple countries, including the United States, are now being monitored for the virus after either disembarking or coming into contact with people who traveled on the cruise ship tied to multiple cases of the virus.

But while this is a "serious incident," according to Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, director of the WHO’s Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Management, she says this is "not the start of a pandemic."

Emotional distancing blurs moral lines

Stephanie Sarkis, a psychotherapist specializing in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and anxiety, says emotional desensitization can happen after prolonged exposure to stress.

"Many people are still carrying unresolved trauma and anxiety from COVID, while also navigating political conflict, war, financial strain, climate anxiety, and a constant stream of distressing news," she explains. "At a certain point, the mind may create emotional distance as a form of self-preservation."

This can result in "emotional numbing." However, some people use dark humor to cope with tragedy or fears surrounding a health crisis, and still exhibit emotional intelligence or empathy in their interpersonal relationships or other parts of their lives.

But the more people emotionally distance themselves, Sarkis warns, the more desensitized they become to human pain.

It is cyclic − predictive markets rely on emotional detachment, but also contributes to that same environment of empathy exhaustion, or "compassion fatigue."

"These betting sites function to make of absolutely everything an object for gambling," says Ellen Feder, professor of philosophy at American University, "rather than for experiencing empathy, compassion, or anxiety."

Despite debates over the ethics of betting on tragic events, Miller says it is important to distinguish that predicting a pandemic has no weight on the outcome. Fulton adds that most betters don't even care about the event their betting on, but are "drawn to the act of betting itself" − calibrating probabilities and the reward of being right. Whether it involves a baseball game or a disease outbreak, the underlying psychology is the same.

"Empathy is crowded out by platforms designed to reward detachment," he says. "The human stakes are secondary to the analytical ones."