How an anonymous Frenchman won 80 million betting on Trump at Polymarket

A few weeks before the 2024 US presidential elections, when everyone was predicting a draw, an anonymous Frenchman bet a considerable amount of money on Donald Trump’s victory on Polymarket. He had a secret: he knew who was going to win, because he had done “neighborhood surveys”.

In this week’s edition of , the Anderson Cooper on CBS News, the founder of Polymarket, Shayne Coplanrevealed how an anonymous bettor in France managed to win more than 80 million dollars (around 69 million euros) Bet on Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential elections.

The gambler used a trick: he made the right pollsand I was sure who would win the elections.

which we curiously said a few weeks ago was a good way to (and more bizarre things), is not a betting site; is a “prediction market” with up to 15 categories, in which users can bet.

Markets are often presented in the form of questionslike “Who will be the most Googled actor this year?” or “Will Xi Jinping be removed before 2027?”, and bettors can bet “Yes” or “No” regarding a given result.

The betting odds, or predictions, are clearly displayed next to each question, and also presented in a graphwhich shows how the probabilities evolve over time. The rules for each market are also clearly explained, note a.

In our October article, which covered the mysterious case of a gambler who had made a fortune betting at the last minute that Corina Machado would win the Nobel Peace Prize, we explored some of the bets then at stake, and discovered that the former admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo then there was a 51% “probability” of winning the presidential elections in Portugal.

However, in recent weeks, the scenario of this poll changed significantly: Luís Marques Mendes, who then had 20% of the bets, now appears ahead, with one — against 33% for Gouveia e Melo.

Bettors at Polymarket can potentially win (or lose) considerable amounts when betting on political elections around the world, which is one of the platform’s main attractions.

In 2024, the presidential race between then-Vice President Kamala Harris eo President Donald Trump attracted a “whale” (or whale, in the original expression), that is, a high value bettorwho invested a significant amount of money into his guess that Trump would win.

The super bettor, an anonymous person residing in France, placed large bets in early October 2024, at a time when most analysts considered the dispute too close to risk a prediction.

“Everyone said ‘He’s an idiot, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about‘, they thought he simply liked Trump… and, in fact, he had ordered a large number of private surveys,” Coplan explained on 60 Minutes.

But How do polls of the “French Whale”, as he became known, they gave him So much confidence in Trump’s victorywhen all official polls predicted technical draws or very balanced results?

The French super gambler did surveys… differentexplains Coplan. “He did something called neighborhood surveywhich consists of asking people Who do you think your neighbors will vote for?”.

“In an election in which there is a stigma in saying you are going to vote in a certain candidate and people feel some social embarrassment”, this is the way of obtain a more reliable resultnotes the CEO of Polymarket.

The “French Whale” ordered polls in key states from Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, drawing on the global research and data analysis group.

In addition to a more traditional poll, in which the participant is asked which candidate they would vote for, the “French Whale” asked for such a “neighborhood survey”in which respondents were asked about who people would vote for your “social circle”.

The results showed a significant discrepancy: neighborhood surveys indicated much more support for Donald Trump than traditional surveys.

“He thought Trump was undervalued… and was confident, based on his investigation, that Trump was the most likely winner”, says Coplan.

About three weeks before election day, using several different accounts, the “French Whale” He then increased his bet on Trump’s victory — enough so that the odds from the time they gave him, when the republican won the elections, more than 80 million dollars with your bet.