A French dealer who wagered $30 million on betting web site Polymarket that Donald Trump will win the presidential election mentioned he has no political motivation for doing so.
In an interview with the Wall Road Journal, the so-called whale referred to himself as “Théo” and mentioned he made his bets on Trump for one motive solely.
“My intent is just making money,” he mentioned.
After questions arose about giant pro-Trump trades on the platform, Polymarket reached out to the French whale behind the accounts however didn’t disclose his identification, saying solely that he had “extensive trading experience and a financial services background.”
The dealer’s handful of huge bets had been skewing the election odds in Trump’s favor, the Journal reported final month, elevating fears of market manipulation to change voters’ perceptions of the race.
However Théo denied any such motives, telling the Journal in an electronic mail, “I have absolutely no political agenda.”
He additionally mentioned that he’s inserting the Polymarket bets together with his personal cash, which he mentioned was nearly all of his liquid property. The outlet couldn’t confirm whether or not this was true or not. A spokesperson for Polymarket didn’t instantly reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
Utilizing a number of completely different accounts on Polymarket, Théo racked up his huge Trump wager by a sequence of small transactions which he mentioned was to assist stop the value of his bets from rising so he may get a greater deal.
For instance, throughout a 10-hour interval final week, the dealer’s Theo4 account revamped 450 bets on Vice President Kamala Harris not successful the presidential election in quantities starting from $5 to tens of 1000’s of {dollars}.
Polymarket has been cited over the previous a number of months by mainstream media retailers as a substitute for conventional polls, with some election watchers arguing that prediction markets are extra more likely to replicate an correct image of the race as a result of individuals are placing actual cash behind their bets.
But Polymarket shouldn’t be accessible to American customers and was fined by the CFTC in 2022 for “offering off-exchange event-based binary options contracts.” Two separate investigations by blockchain corporations additionally discovered that a big chunk of the buying and selling quantity on Polymarket may doubtlessly be chalked as much as “wash trading,” a type of market manipulation the place merchants purchase and promote shares repeatedly to falsely inflate market quantity and exercise, Fortune reported.
“Polymarket’s Terms of Use expressly prohibit market manipulation,” a Polymarket spokesperson beforehand mentioned in a press release to Fortune. “We strive to provide users with the fairest analysis possible and our transparency allows the market to decide.”
If Théo’s Trump bets pan out, he may greater than double his cash, netting about $80 million, in line with the Journal. If Harris wins, he may lose nearly all of his cash, or worse, lose his complete wager.
Théo mentioned whereas he was new to election betting, he made the large wagers on Trump as a result of he believes the Republican candidate’s election odds are being understated by mainstream polls. He pointed to polls from 2016 and 2020 that got here in effectively under Trump’s vote totals and the concept some folks don’t wish to publicly help Trump. Polls from the New York Instances/Siena Faculty and Reuters/Ipsos put Trump and Harris in a lifeless warmth with days left till election day.
The Journal described Théo as a person with a “short, neatly trimmed beard” who wore a grey Nike sweatshirt and had a slight accent when talking English. He mentioned he beforehand lived within the U.S. and traded for banks. The French whale additionally mentioned he didn’t wish to give his full title as a result of his mates and kids don’t learn about his monumental wealth.
Whereas Théo was assured about Trump’s odds in his interview with the Journal, he nervously admitted that the political winds can change immediately.
“A surprise can always occur,” he mentioned.
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