A mystery French national who won $85 million betting on the US presidential election via Polymarket opted to plump for Trump after commissioning his own polls.
The trader, known only as “Théo,” told The Wall Street Journal that he ignored the traditional polls, which predicted the election would be a much closer race than it was. Instead, he funded his own “neighbor” surveys. These ask respondents who they think their neighbors will vote for rather than themselves.
The theory behind neighbor polls is they counteract the so-called “shy Trump voter effect” where respondents might be reluctant to declare their support for the former president or simply might not wish to participate in the survey at all.
While voters might be guarded about telling pollsters whom they intended to vote for, they have no such qualms about discussing their neighbors’ preferences.
‘No Agenda’
Théo’s research helped him conclude that traditional polls were overstating support for Kamala Harris. In an email to a WSJ reporter on the eve of the election, the trader said he had commissioned his research using a major US pollster, which he declined to name.
The results “were mind blowing to the favor of Trump!” Théo said. Not only did the Frenchman correctly predict that Trump would win the presidential race and flip the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, but also that the Republican would win the popular vote, something he did not manage to do in 2016.
Théo described himself as a wealthy former banker who was gambling with his own money and had “absolutely no political agenda.”
Large bets on one position can skew the markets, and there were fears that a wealthy group or individual could attempt to influence the election results by betting heavily in one direction. This could then manipulate beliefs about a certain candidate’s odds of victory in an attempt to boost campaign morale and turnout.
Winning Figure Revised
It was first thought that Théo’s wagers, made via four Polymarket accounts, had netted him (only) $48 million. But last week, Bloomberg discovered there were in fact eight accounts linked to the French trader and revised the winning figure.
Collectively, Polymarket traders wagered around $3.7 billion on who would win the US presidency. The publicity surrounding Théo’s activities has prompted the French gambling regulator, L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux, to investigate whether the site complies with domestic law.
Although based in New York, Polymarket is a decentralized and unregulated financial exchange and prediction platform that allows users to trade on the outcome of world events via events contracts, a type of derivative formatted for putting money on “yes” or “no” outcomes before expiring.
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