On election night, Arlene Battishill, a retired history professor and political analyst known to her social media followers as “Dr. Arlene Unfiltered,” a bottle of champagne, confident in the data from several states showing a potential Kamala Harris win.
But a different story had emerged on Polymarket, a decentralized forecasting platform founded in 2020, built on blockchain technology and banned in the US. It had consistently shown Trump in the lead since his September debate with Harris, and it ultimately proved to be more accurate than conventional polling methods that showed the race in a dead heat.
This is the third consecutive presidential election in which… [Donald] Trump was underestimated by the polls,” said Harry Crane, professor of statistics at Rutgers University. “The betting markets have been spot on in this cycle, despite attacks from the mainstream media and pollsters, both of whom were wrong in their analysis.”
The results, advocates say, strengthen the case for prediction markets as they become more mainstream and seek to expand election betting in the US.
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, 26, celebrated the election on CNBC’s Squawk Box, calling it a “watershed moment in news and politics.” Polymarket “was a good two or three hours ahead of the media,” Coplan said. “If you just watched TV you would think it was neck and neck.”
But ‘Dr. Arlene’ predicted in a question and answer session with her followers that ‘a a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money” on the platforms.
“People will be slaughtered financially. It is the most irresponsible thing to bet on our democracy,” she said.
Launched in 2020, Polymarket secured a $70 million funding round in May 2024 led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin. Major media outlets such as CNBC and The Economist now regularly quote his predictions. Gamblers are betting billions of dollars on the presidential race before Election Day.
Coplan told CNBC that on election night he received calls from Mar-a-Lago, where the Trump campaign was following his win over Polymarket. “It was surreal,” Coplan said.
Days later, the FBI raided Coplan’s New York City home and seized his electronics — part of an investigation into Polymarket allegedly accepting trades from U.S. users, Bloomberg reported. Coplan suggested the raid was politically motivated, posting on
At competitor Kalshi, Americans legally bet $100 million on the presidential race after the platform successfully challenged the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s ban on election betting in October, NPR reported. The decision by Biden-appointed Judge Jia Cobb marked a return to a practice common in American races until the early 20th century. The CFTC has appealed the ruling.
Kalshi, who raked in a total of about $1 billion in election bets, went back to court in November to block the appeal, saying only Congress has the authority to ban election betting.
Critics are still not convinced. “It’s pure gambling. Election betting can’t predict the future any better than gambling, regardless of whether or not you get 21 in blackjack,” said Cantrell Dumas, director of derivatives policy at Better Markets.
“It’s just ridiculous to think that gamblers can call an election,” Dumas said.
The credibility of traditional polling took another blow in the 2024 presidential race. Ann Selzer dropped out after her Iowa poll projected Harris would miss a double-digit victory. A Rutgers-Eagleton poll showed Harris with a huge lead, which turned out to be much smaller.
A common argument for proponents of predictive markets is that betting on election results is more “pure” and in line with market forces than traditional polls, which they say can be politically biased and manipulated.
“Betting markets encourage being right and discourage being wrong. If you’re right you make money, if you’re wrong you lose money,” says Crane, the Rutgers professor. “You can’t say the same about polls. Pollsters keep putting out polls cycle after cycle, even when they’re seriously wrong.”
While no one knows the long-term future of U.S. prediction markets, the return of the Trump administration could reshape them for gambling enthusiasts, he said.
“If the new government delivers on its promise to promote freedom and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation, the gambling markets will thrive in the years to come,” Crane said. “I expect the election betting markets will continue to grow in popularity and will be much bigger and more widely accepted next time.”
