Speculation swirls about mystery Polymarket trader betting big on a Trump victory
Several mysterious millionaires have wagered huge sums on online prediction markets in favor of Donald Trump in recent hours, sparking wild speculation about who is behind the massive money dump.
Political prediction platforms have become all the rage in the 2024 campaign cycle and are being closely followed by campaigns as a way to monitor candidate support.
Over the course of the campaign cycle, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have become increasingly popular as options, and many have started checking their odds as a sort of poll.
Polymarket, one of the most popular election prediction sites, allows users to bet on whether they think Trump or Harris will win the US presidential election.
But in the past 48 hours, the cryptocurrency-powered network has had a number of unidentifiable high rollers throw millions behind Trump, potentially swaying the results and raising questions about who is behind it.
Polymarket – which bills itself as the largest prediction market in the world – is a decentralized crypto platform where users can bet on things like elections and other political events. As the platform’s popularity has grown, it has increasingly been referred to as a poll, and now several accounts have poured millions into the platform in favor of Donald Trump weeks before Election Day.
As of Thursday afternoon, the ex-president had a 62-to-38 lead on the platform when it came to odds of winning, leaving Harris behind.
However, just five days ago, on October 12, Polymarket showed that Trump had a 54 percent chance of winning Harris’ 46.
Harris had a 52 percent chance of winning a month ago.
Trump campaign advisers are liking what they’ve seen lately, posting and reposting Polymarket results that favor the former president.
Tesla and X leader Elon Musk, who is now fully a MAGA Trump supporter, has also sung the website’s praises.
“Trump now leads Kamala by 3 percent in the gambling markets. More accurate than polls because there is real money at stake,” the world’s richest man, Musk, wrote on X this week.
But there are big questions about the platform’s reliability as an indicator of who will win.
It can only be accessed outside the US, requires crypto to place a bet and only has roughly 100,000 users this month – a fraction of the 244 million Americans eligible to vote.
The rapid increase in the former president’s lead may be due, at least in part, to four accounts on Polymarket that reportedly have up to $25 million tied to the outcome of the presidential election.
Polymarket users Fredi9999PrincessCaro, Michie and Theo4 have all bet at least hundreds of thousands of dollars in favor of Trump in recent hours.
Fredi9999 is the oldest account of the four and joined the platform in June 2024.
To date, that account has traded an incredible total volume of $74 million.
It holds more than $14 million in bets in favor of the Republican winning the White House.
As of Thursday afternoon, former President Trump held a 62-to-38 lead, showing he has a powerful lead over Harris. A month ago, Harris had a 52 percent chance of winning
Fredi9999 has bet more than $14 million on Donald Trump winning the US presidential election on Polymarket. The account has generated a whopping $74 million in total trading volume since opening months ago
Caro’s account was opened in September and has wagered a total of $23 million to date and contains $5 million in bets on Trump’s victory.
Michie and Theo’s accounts started this month and have traded more than $3.5 million and $5 million respectively after the ex-president won.
A total of more than $25 million has been wagered on Trump’s victory on these four accounts alone, with a huge amount coming in in recent days.
The huge transactions have attracted attention online, with many seeing the transactions as unusual.
A self-proclaimed ‘full-time political gambler since 2007’ who goes by the name ‘Domer’ wrote on
Domer estimated that Fredi’s investments have moved Polymarket’s presidential prediction market at least five points toward Trump, and that number could be as high as eight points.
The alleged old political gambler then put forward the idea that Fredi, Michie, PriceCaro and Theo are actually all the same “person or entity.”
Polymarket once showed on Thursday that Donald Trump had a 62 percent chance of winning the election
The Theo4 account was created this month and a total of $15 million has been wagered so far, with at least $5 million wagered on a Republican winning the presidency.
PrincessCaro has made $23 million worth of predictions on Polymarket and has bet at least $5 million on Trump
Domer also claimed to have had brief contact with the person behind Fredi’s account.
The gambler said the mysterious personality behind the multi-million dollar bets was rude and arrogant.
He believed it could be a European individual with money to blow.
Since Polymarket is not accessible in the US, whoever is placing these bets must make them from outside the country or use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to bypass legal restrictions.
Yet it remains unclear who is behind the massive Polymarket bets that are sending the Trump vs. Harris market into a frenzy.
Backed by conservative libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel, the site has wagered more than $2 billion in total volume on Trump and Harris’ Election Day alone, according to the site. facts.
More than $615 million has been pledged to Trump, while nearly $410 million has been bet on Harris.
The Poly market is also growing, according to data analysis site Dunewhich shows a huge jump in web traffic this month, with over 100,000 users.