Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at the Erie Insurance Arena in Erie, Pennsylvania, on October 14, 2024.
Dustin Franz | Afp | Getty Images
A stark shift toward Donald Trump on the political gambling platform Polymarket this month stoked scrutiny about four accounts that have collectively spent over $28 million betting on the Republican nominee to win the 2024 presidential election.
Polymarket on Thursday confirmed what a number of experts have suspected: All four accounts are controlled by a single trader.
A company spokesperson in a statement to CNBC described the whale as a French national with "extensive trading experience and a financial services background."
The statement said the trader's accounts were funded from a "well-known centralized crypto exchange," which other outlets have identified as the U.S.-based exchange Kraken.
The company insisted that it has found no evidence that the trader is trying to juice Trump's odds on the political betting market.
An investigation involving third-party experts "to date has not identified any information to suggest that this user manipulated, or attempted to manipulate, the market," Polymarket said.
The New York Times, which reported Polymarket's statement earlier Thursday morning, said that the company worked with the investigations firm Nardello & Company.
The scrutiny on the Polymarket trades comes as political betting markets have taken on a much more prominent role in the 2024 election cycle.
Trump's supporters have touted Polymarket's widening odds gap with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris as evidence of Trump's growing support — even though the shift diverges from most national polls, which show a neck-and-neck race, well within the margin of error.
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Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO and one of the biggest financial backers of Trump's White House bid, asserted on his social media site X that the betting markets are "more accurate than polls, as actual money is on the line."
Polymarket in Thursday's statement stressed that "prediction markets are not opinion polls—they measure the likelihood of an event occurring rather than the percentage of people who intend to take an action such as, in this case, voting on Election Day."
"Unfortunately, this fundamental misunderstanding is responsible for much of the misinformation about Polymarket and other prediction market platforms," the company said.
As of Thursday morning, the accounts' total position on the presidential election bet was valued at about $28.6 million, according to Polymarket data.
The four accounts — Fredi9999, Theo4, PrincessCaro and Michie — are among the top five holders on the pro-Trump side of Polymarket's bet on who will win the race for the White House.
The trader's accounts have also bet over $7 million that Trump will win the popular vote over Harris.
Odds and gambling platforms do not use methodologies used by traditional political polling, and therefore are not substitutes for political polls.
The Polymarket spokesperson said it believes "that this individual is taking a directional position based on personal views of the election."
But the person nevertheless "has agreed not to open further accounts without notice."
Polymarket is currently banned for U.S. traders, following a 2022 settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
But another betting platform, Kalshi, posted new presidential election contracts after a favorable ruling in a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. Interactive Brokers has also launched a slew of political betting contracts.
The CFTC is challenging Kalshi's right to host those bets.
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