"Make no mistake, Polymarket single-handedly called the election before anything else," Shane Coplan, chief executive of the prediction market, crowed in an X post on Wednesday. The crypto-based platform, which calls itself the "world's largest prediction market," was among the betting markets that correctly predicted a Trump win on Tuesday, the Daily Beast reports. Skeptics, including economists, had said the predictions were probably unreliable, pointing to a handful of very large bets as a sign of possible manipulation.
The election was a huge moment for prediction markets, which were forecasting a Trump win while most polls showed the election was neck-and-neck, the New York Times reports. Polymarket and four others—Betfair, Kalshi, PredictIt, and Smarkets—all had odds pointing to a Trump victory. "The Trump campaign HQ literally found out they were winning from Polymarket," Coplan said. "History was made today." In a post on X early Wednesday, as the result became clear, Kalshi chief executive Tarek Mansour said: "Polls 0 Prediction Markets 1."
The markets have been around for years, but they gained new prominence, and new interest from investors, during this election, the Times reports. Polymarket, which is already backed by conservative billionaire Peter Thiel, is working on a $50 million fundraising round. The "whale" whose large bets on Trump to win attracted suspicion has banked around $48 million in profits after betting $30 million across four accounts, Business Insider reports. The bettor, who identified himself as a French trader named Theo, told the Wall Street Journal last week that the bets weren't placed for political reasons. "My intent is just making money," he said. (More Election 2024 stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
