How a French gambler's huge bet spiked Trump's odds on Polymarket
The Independent (UK)
November 1, 2024
Over the last three months, four accounts on a popular gambling site have placed thousands of bets totaling more than $50 million on Donald Trump winning the US presidential election next week.
The bets, placed on prediction platform Polymarket, appear to have skewed the odds massively in Trump's favor on the site, with the total figure representing roughly 2 percent of all bets placed on the 2024 elections.
The four accounts -- Freddi9999, Theo4, PrincessCaro, and Michie -- have been traced back to a single French national with "extensive trading experience and [a] financial services background", according to a statement from Polymarket.
The betting platform said there was no evidence that the trader had placed the bets to deliberately boost Trump's odds, though the incident has proved how easy it is for one wealthy individual to manipulate the market.
The latest figures from Polymarket give Trump a 66 percent chance of beating Democratic rival Kamala Harris, who has just a one-in-three chance of taking the White House by these odds.
Meanwhile, the latest national polling average compiled by FiveThirtyEight has a Trump victory at just 46.7 percent and a Harris win at 48.1 percent.
More:
https://independent.co.uk/tech/polymarket-trump-betting-odds-latest-b2638206.html