Following Donald Trump’s election victory, thousands of bettors anticipate a potential $450 million payout from online betting sites, says Reuters. As Trump’s odds surged on so-called prediction markets near the end of the race, platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket gained attention for diverging sharply from traditional polls, which suggested a much closer race.
Talking with the outlet, a Princeton neuroscience professor credited the markets’ comparative accuracy to their ability to “measure crowd wisdom where no hard data is available.”
Backers in Kalshi plainly saw what was coming. As TechCrunch reported last week, its investors loaned the outfit tens of millions of dollars in short-term loans to pay its customers.
Their individual winnings may pale in comparison to a Polymarket bettor known as the “Polymarket whale.” As Reuters notes, the French former trader made $40 million worth of Trump-related bets on the site. If Trump also wins the popular vote, the “whale” will reportedly walk away with $80 million.
