Forward the Original Title: Polymarket emerges as the biggest winner from US$3.6 billion election bet

French trader Théo bet $45 million on Trump, becoming the most profitable user on Polymarket.

During the entire election period this year, the most popular application in the currency circle besides Pump.Fun should be the prediction market Polymarket. Due to Polymarket’s excellent operation during the election, coupled with the promotion of Trump and some KOLs, the positioning of “who can bet on the next president on Polymarket” was quickly spread. Presidential-related trading volume continued to increase as election night approached, until at noon on November 6. Due to too many people flooding the Polymarket website, its servers briefly crashed.

Throughout the election cycle, ompared with the predictions of traditional polling organizations, the changes in odds on Polymarket have always been highly sensitive to news. Funds always precede news. When the winners of swing states have not yet been decided, the odds of Trump’s victory on Polymarket have already increased.

The cumulative trading volume of prediction transactions related to the election on Polymarket has reached $3,612,184,597. The trading volume of Republican candidate Trump-related transactions on Polymarket is close to 1.48 billion US dollars. The trading volume of Democratic candidate Harris’s Trading volume was $1.01 billion.

Leading traditional polls and gaining popularity

On November 6, Polymarket data showed that Trump’s probability of winning had experienced significant fluctuations. Trump’s victory margin stood at 59.4% at 1 a.m., after briefly rising to 63% earlier in the day. By 9:46 a.m., Trump’s probability of victory had risen to 71.1 percent, while Harris’s had dropped to 29.1 percent. As of 11:17 a.m., Trump’s odds of winning had climbed further to 88.6%. Since then, Trump has been leading the vote in key swing states. The odds on Polymarket have changed very quickly, with everyone speaking with their money.

According to Protos data, Polymarket and Kalshi were compared side by side with the election odds from The New York Times (NYT) and Nate Silver, and the differences were obvious. For example, on October 31, Trump’s chance of winning the US election was 66% on Polymarket, but only 48% on The Hill.

Looking at a wider sample, the average of traditional polling agencies such as Nate Silver, NYT or FiveThirtyEight shows that Trump and Harris have been within a few basis points in the past period of time. Obviously, judging from the results, the results given by Polymarket based on trading activities are more convincing than those of traditional polling agencies.

On November 6, according to data from the app analytics platform SensorTower, the regulated prediction market platform Kalshi is currently ranked first in Apple’s financial app category and also ranked first in free apps. At the same time, Polymarket has also risen to second place in the free app rankings, which is the highest ranking for both apps to date.

Who wins and who loses?

Crypto prediction markets have always been seen as products with strong cyclicality and only specific application scenarios, such as political elections and sports events. As the US election cycle draws to a close, the future development of Polymarket will be the focus of many people’s attention, but at present, the most eye-catching is this $3.6 billion election transaction. Under the heavy bet, French trader Théo spent $45 million on Trump, and eventually became the most profitable user on Polymarket.

In August, Théo sent dozens of emails to Wall Street Journal reporters criticizing mainstream media polls that he believed were biased in favor of Harris. During the Zoom call, he claimed that the Democratic-backed media was paving the way for social unrest by drumming up a tight race in what he expected was a landslide victory for Trump. Théo, who said he was surprised by the attention to his trading, began discreetly placing bets in August, buying millions of dollars in Trump-win contracts under the username Fredi 9999. At the time, Trump and Harris were essentially evenly matched on Polymarket.

To avoid wild price swings, Théo spreads his bets across multiple days. Nonetheless, as the amount bet increased, Théo noticed that other traders would avoid quotes when buying Fredi 9999, making it difficult for him to bet at the ideal price. So he created three more accounts in September and October to mask his buying behavior.

If Trump wins the election and sweeps as he predicts, Théo could make more than $80 million, doubling his bets. His main bet is that Trump wins the electoral vote, and he’s betting millions more on Trump winning the popular vote — a scenario many observers consider unlikely. He’s also betting on Trump winning in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Related reading: “30 million bets on Trump’s victory, this mysterious whale says: just to make money”

Today, the election results are finally announced, and one of Théo’s accounts, Fredi 9999, has made a total profit of $16.47 million.

Taking the four betting options under the “Who will win the presidential election” transaction with the largest trading volume under the political election topic on Polymarket as an example, BlockBeats lists the users with the largest profits and losses below.

Trump

The following figure shows the distribution of users’ betting shares on whether Trump will be elected president on Polymarket. The “supporters” on the left represent users who believe Trump will be elected, among which the largest holder “zxgngl” holds 29,473,073 shares, with a total profit of $11.315 million. Other major supporters include the aforementioned “Fredi 9999” and “walletmobile”.

The “opponents” on the right are users who believe Trump will not be elected. The largest holder “I 95153360” holds 7,107,980 shares and currently has a loss of US$1.192 million.

Harris

The picture below shows the distribution of users’ betting shares on Polymarket on whether Harris will be elected president. The “supporters” on the left represent those users who think Harris will be elected. Among them, the largest holder “leier” holds 10, 871, 056 shares. shares, the user’s total loss has now reached 4.99 million US dollars. Other major backers include “StarVoting” and “Ly 67890”.

The “opponents” on the right are users who think Harris will not be elected. The largest holder is “COMMA-luh”, holding 4,878,533 shares. In addition, this user also placed bets on the “Trump will be elected president” transaction, with a total profit of over $210,000.

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