Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at the Erie Insurance Arena in Erie, Pennsylvania, on October 14, 2024. Dustin Franz | Afp | Getty Images A stark shift toward former President Donald Trump on the political gambling platform Polymarket this month stoked scrutiny about four accounts that have collectively spent over $28 million betting on the Republican nominee to win the 2024 presidential election. Polymarket on Thursday confirmed what a number of experts have suspected : All four accounts are controlled by a single trader.
A company spokesperson in a statement to CNBC described the whale as a French national with "extensive trading experience and a financial services background." The statement said the trader's accounts were funded from a "well-known centralized crypto exchange," which other outlets have identified as the U.S.
-based exchange Kraken. The company insisted that it has found no evidence that the trader is trying to juice Trump's odds on the political betting market. An investigation involving third-party experts "to date has not identified any information to suggest that this user manipulated, or attempted to manipulate, the market," Polymarket said.
The New York Times, which reported Polymarket's statement earlier Thursday morning, said the company worked with the investigations firm Nardello & Company. The scrutiny on the Polymarket trades comes as political betting markets have taken on a much more .