Election betting platform Polymarket has plans to return to the US on its success accurately predicting President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping win over Vice President Kamala Harris for the White House.
Polymarket is currently only available to customers outside of the US – including the French “whale” trader who infamously bet millions of dollars on a Trump win and raked in about $48 million in profits after the election was called.
In 2022, the platform paused trading in the US and paid a $1.4 million penalty to settle charges with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that it had failed to register with the agency.
“I want to give a lot of credit to the people who fought the battle to go and legalize political prediction markets in America,” Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan told CNBC “Squawk Box” on Thursday. “Now we are in the position to be aggressive around expansion.”
Coplan has rival betting platform Kalshi to thank after a key ruling in October lifted a pause on Kalshi’s operations and allowed election contract trading.
“A showing of irreparable harm is a necessary prerequisite for a stay,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote in the ruling.
Polymarket’s election betting was a smash hit this year – with gamblers placing more than $3.7 billion on bets.
The morning before Election Day, the betting site said Trump had a 58.6% chance of winning the presidency while Harris’ odds stood at 41.4%, according to the Polymarket site. The site’s bets were a more accurate prediction than the most recent polls.
“On Polymarket it looked like a done deal, and if you were just watching TV, you would think it’s neck and neck,” Coplan said. The 26-year-old brains behind Polymarket created the betting site when he was just 21 years old.
Those who believe betting sites are the next big polling tool argue the markets react faster to changes in sentiment and keep voters engaged.
After seeing Kalshi’s runaway success with election betting, Interactive Brokers and Robinhood soon launched their own versions ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“This is going to be a larger market in my view than the equities market maybe in 15 years or so,” Interactive Brokers founder and chairman Thomas Peterffy told CNBC “Closing Bell” on Wednesday. “It is basically a global marketplace–the questions are equally relevant for people wherever they live around the world.”
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has said the election betting platforms are more accurate than traditional polling because participants have a real stake in the results.
“The great thing about these markets is people have money on the line,” Tenev previously told CNBC. “You can trust that they care much more about the result and those results should be much more reliable in a sense than simple polling.”
Trump supporter Elon Musk’s praise for Polymarket is along the same vein.
The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX founder said in a post on X that Polymarket is “more accurate than polls, as actually money is on the line.”
On election night, prior to the results being called, Musk wrote: “The prophecy has been fulfilled!”
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