Published on: November 11, 2024, 06:01h.
Last updated on: November 11, 2024, 06:01h.
A mysterious French individual who won a staggering $85 million by betting on the US presidential election through Polymarket decided to go for Trump after conducting his own surveys.
The trader, known only as “Théo,” informed The Wall Street Journal that he disregarded conventional polls that suggested the election would be a closer competition than it turned out to be. Instead, he financed his own surveys focusing on neighbors’ opinions.
Neighbor polls aim to negate the so-called “shy Trump voter effect,” where respondents might hesitate to declare their support for the former president or opt not to participate in surveys at all.
While voters may be reserved about revealing their intended vote to pollsters, they seem more open to discussing their neighbors’ preferences.
‘No Agenda’
Théo’s research led him to believe that traditional polls overestimated support for Kamala Harris. In an email to a WSJ reporter just before the election, the trader mentioned commissioning research from a major US pollster, which he chose not to disclose.
The results “were mind-blowing in favor of Trump!” Théo stated. Not only did the Frenchman accurately predict Trump’s victory in the presidential race and the flipping of swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, but also that the Republican would secure the popular vote, a feat he did not achieve in 2016.
Théo described himself as a wealthy former banker placing bets with his own money and with “absolutely no political agenda.”
Significant bets on a single outcome can skew markets, and concerns arose that a wealthy individual or group could try to influence election results by heavily wagering in one direction. This could manipulate beliefs about a certain candidate’s chances of winning to boost campaign morale and turnout.
Revised Winning Amount
Initially, it was believed that Théo’s bets, made through four Polymarket accounts, earned him $48 million. However, Bloomberg recently discovered eight accounts linked to the French trader, resulting in a revised winning amount.
Collectively, Polymarket traders wagered approximately $3.7 billion on the US presidency outcome. The attention surrounding Théo’s actions prompted the French gambling regulator, L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux, to investigate the site’s compliance with domestic regulations.
While based in New York, Polymarket serves as a decentralized and unregulated financial exchange and prediction platform allowing users to trade on the results of global events through event contracts, a derivative type structured for betting on “yes” or “no” outcomes before they expire.