Polymarket removes bets on outcome of Cornell University sexual assault case

Polymarket, an online betting platform, has removed a contract that allowed users to bet on whether any of the seven men accused of raping a Cornell student in 2024 will be charged with a felony sex crime.

The market was made available on Sept. 30 and was scheduled to close on Jan. 31.

It had more than $450,000 in volume before it was taken off Polymarket’s international platform, The Associated Press reports.

The company’s U.S. exchange is regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which bans trading related to “activity that is unlawful under Federal or State law.”

“Our primary goal at Polymarket is to bring objective, data-driven insight to the most important questions of our time,” a Polymarket spokesperson told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

“This market addressed whether the government would take action — a process that deserves scrutiny, particularly in a case of such serious concern,” the spokesperson said.

“That said, we believe in the wisdom of crowds, have heard them loud and clear, and removed the market,” the statement added.

Front Office Sports was the first to report on the contract.

Backlash began after a petition under the name “No Gambling on Gang Rape” made reference to celebrities like LeBron James, Emily Ratajkowski, Eli Manning and others who have promoted the online platform.

“As brand ambassadors profiting from your ties with the ‘predictive market’ (online gambling) platform Polymarket, you are also profiting from the heinous trend of betting on sexual assault cases,” the petition description read.

“Survivors deserve so much better than to have bets placed on whether or not they will win justice, not to mention the corrupt influence it could put on participating parties like jurors,” the petition added.

The petition called on the celebrities to “do the right thing by cutting all ties with Polymarket and denouncing the gross practice of betting on legal cases regarding sexual violence.”

The Ontario Securities Commission fined Polymarket’s parent companies in April 2025 and the online prediction platform is currently serving a two-year ban in Ontario for violating provincial securities laws.

A woman identified in court documents by the pseudonym Jane Doe filed a lawsuit last month alleging that seven fraternity members sexually assaulted or exploited her in October 2024 and that Cornell mishandled her complaints. All of those men have denied her allegations, saying either that their interactions were consensual or that they weren’t involved.

She went to campus police three weeks after the alleged encounter and gave a detailed account of what happened, but the local district attorney decided not to file criminal charges or push for more investigation after reviewing a police summary of her interview, according to The Associated Press.

Only the school’s investigation, under the federal Title IX law, persisted, with a goal of deciding discipline for the students involved.

In her lawsuit, Jane Doe accused two of the other men who entered the room of performing sex acts on her without her consent, while she was partially incapacitated.

She accused another man of kissing her without her consent. According to the Title IX documents, viewed by The Associated Press, Jane Doe told investigators two other men stood at the foot of the bed acting “more like voyeurs than anything.”

The lawsuit seeks to hold all seven men liable for rape. She is asking for unspecified damages.

The former student’s rape allegations have sparked campus protests, renewed scrutiny of Cornell’s disciplinary system and led to the reopening of a criminal investigation of the alleged October 2024 assault.

—With files from The Associated Press