The surge in Trump’s winning odds on Polymarket raises concerns about market manipulation

Recently, Donald Trump has overtaken Kamala Harris by a large margin in Polymarket’s U.S. election victory odds, sparking concerns about market manipulation ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

As the Republican candidate Trump surges to a significant lead in the odds on the decentralized prediction platform, questions about the platform’s reliability are being raised.

Trump’s suspicious surge in victory odds In Polymarket’s official prediction for the “U.S. Election Winner 2024,” Trump has scored 62.1%, leaving Harris far behind at 37.9%.

This dramatic difference reportedly resulted from a single user’s bet, leaving many in shock.

A user known as “Freddie9999” bet a whopping $20 million (approximately 27.5 billion KRW) on Trump’s victory, causing market distortion and raising questions about the validity of Polymarket’s odds.

Meanwhile, national polls show Harris leading with a 48.5% probability of winning, compared to Trump’s 46.2%.

As election day approaches, debates around political prediction markets are heating up.

Elon Musk, the billionaire and CEO of social media platform X, recently claimed that even though these prediction platforms might not be accurate, they are “more precise than polls because real money is on the line.”

Critics, however, argue that large bets can skew results.

The U.S. Congress has also voiced opposition to political prediction platforms.

In August 2024, several senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, and Jeff Merkley, sent a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), expressing concerns that large-scale betting could impact election outcomes.

They stated, “Election betting fundamentally undermines the sacred value of our democratic process,” and added, “Political betting could shift the motivation for voting from political beliefs to financial gain.”

Possibility of Trump’s Polymarket Odds Being Rigged Before Election Day

Last month, the prediction platform Kalshi won a high-profile lawsuit, allowing it to sell contracts based on political events. However, the federal appeals court quickly expedited a legal review of the ruling.

According to Morning Brew, Kalshi raked in over $12 million from contracts related to Harris and Trump.

On Kalshi’s prediction platform, Trump leads with a 57% winning probability, compared to Harris’s 43%. Experts have warned that these statistics may not reflect reality. Brandon Carl, the head of AI and strategy at Smarsh, cautioned that such prediction markets could trigger herd behavior, as people tend to back the candidate who appears to be the winner, regardless of the true odds.

All political views aside…

I worry that betting markets like Polymarket end up used to influence stock markets as well as political outcomes.

There were reportedly two whale bets totaling $4 million betting on Donald Trump. It moved the betting markets.

Subsequently stocks… pic.twitter.com/yzNfZLsiud

— Brandon Carl (@brandonjcarl) October 17, 2024

Carl humorously quipped, “The bigger risk lies in people assuming the betting market reflects reality. But a prediction market is still a market, and therefore, it’s open to distortion. And boy, is there motivation for that.”

As the 2024 U.S. presidential election approaches, doubts about the integrity of prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi remain as murky as ever, leaving many to wonder just how much these massive bets might sway the actual election results.