Polymarket Bar Opens, Sucks

When the prediction app market Polymarket announced Wednesday that it was opening a bar on Friday called the Situation Room, we published a story to that effect, noting especially that Polymarket was promising many screens. It was right there in our headline, “Polymarket to Open Bar Full of Screens.”

Reader, the bar was not full of screens, not working screens anyway.

Wired’s D.C. reporter Makena Kelly was physically on the premises during the grand opening. I can only salute my competitor for her dedication:

“After waiting outside for nearly an hour and a half in the rain because of technical issues—power and wifi going out—none of the TVs are working,” Kelly wrote on Bluesky. Apparently the staff assured her that everything would be working on Saturday, which is today.

On Saturday, in a goofy reply to its own post on X, Polymarket kinda sorta acknowledged that last night didn’t work out, and included a video appearing to show that the screens are all working. A large orb, which was apparently working last night, appears to still be working.

There may or may not have been a situation in the Situation Room last night. Reports remain unconfirmed.

However, the situation monitors are now on… & ready to be monitored.

See you at 11am. pic.twitter.com/Us7PXsPC1A

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) March 21, 2026

When reached for comment by Gizmodo, Polymarket declined to comment on the record.

As Polymarket’s X posts have made abundantly clear, the bar stunt is a play on the “monitoring the situation” meme, but shortly after Polymarket announced the bar, a PR firm called Global Situation Room sent a cease and desist letter to Polymarket, according to CNBC. The firm cited “obvious overlaps in the uses of GLOBAL SITUATION ROOM and THE SITUATION ROOM such as both marks include ‘SITUATION ROOM’ and allow consumers to monitor and act on global affairs.”

Gizmodo has no plans at this time to report live from Polymarkets bar. We will, however, be monitoring the situation on screens.