The $3.6B Election That Beat the Polls: Polymarket, the French Whale, and the 6 A.M. FBI Raid

1. Odds for Sale

Polymarket lets traders put money on real-world outcomes — election results and the kinds of events television panels argue about for free. The company was founded in 2020 by Shayne Coplan, and its markets were deployed through smart contracts hosted on a blockchain, with no traditional exchange in the middle. Each contract trades between two outcomes, and its price reads as a probability. But a price is only the crowd's live estimate: a number that moves with every trade and promises nothing.^[1][7]

The regulator arrived early. On January 3, 2022, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission entered an order filing and simultaneously settling charges against Delaware-registered Blockratize, Inc., doing business as Polymarket, for offering off-exchange event-based binary options without designation as a designated contract market or registration as a swap execution facility. The order required a $1.4 million civil monetary penalty, a wind-down of all markets that did not comply with the Commodity Exchange Act, and an undertaking to cease and desist. Polymarket had offered more than 900 separate event markets since inception, and the CFTC recognized its substantial cooperation in the form of a reduced penalty.^[1]

After the settlement, Polymarket was not supposed to allow users in the United States — an arrangement that later reporting described as the exact focus of federal interest. For the next two years the platform kept operating, and the 2024 election would test both its machinery and its legal footing.^[7][8]

2. The $3.6 Billion Election Book

The 2024 presidential election became the largest event market the platform had ever hosted. NBC News calculated that Polymarket brought in over $3.6 billion in bets on the race, with $1.5 billion wagered on Donald Trump and $1 billion on Vice President Kamala Harris; Decrypt put the flagship market's final volume at $3.64 billion, including $72 million on Joe Biden, and Newsweek rounded the total to around $3.7 billion. The figure is easy to misread: it is trading volume — positions changing hands, often repeatedly — not the amount of capital actually at risk.^[2][3][4]

The prices told a one-sided story against the polls. Trump was Polymarket's favorite for most of the campaign, peaking at a 71.5 percent chance of winning after the first assassination attempt in July; Harris never traded higher than her August peak of 54 percent. A market price is what traders collectively paid, not a guarantee — even at its peak, the market still left better than one chance in four that Trump would lose.^[3]

Traditional polls, by contrast, had the two candidates neck and neck for most of the campaign, with Harris ahead by a single percentage point in the polling average through much of the election season. The gap between a statistical tie and a persistent favorite became the story the platform was known for — and the slogan its founder leaned into.^[3]

Trust the markets, not the polls.^[3]

— Shayne Coplan, Polymarket founder and CEO, on X (via Decrypt)

The market settled after the election was called, not before. Its own rules named the Associated Press, Fox, and NBC as the resolution source, and the contract closed only after all three called the race for Trump — a detail that cuts against the legend that Polymarket beat the networks to the call.^[3]

3. The Whale They Called Théo

Attention soon fixed on one cluster of accounts. The Wall Street Journal interviewed a French former bank trader who gave only the assumed name Théo and declined to identify himself further. As reported by Newsweek, he placed over $30 million in bets through four accounts — Theo4, Fredi9999, PrincessCaro, and Michie — backing Trump to win the presidency, the popular vote, and the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. NBC's framing of the same interview put his wagers at over $28 million.^[4][2][5]

His edge, as he told it, was method rather than ideology. Théo commissioned private surveys that asked a different question than standard polls: not whom respondents would vote for, but whom their neighbors would vote for — a framing meant to surface quiet preferences. He declined to share the polls, saying they had been commissioned on the condition that they remain private, and described what he saw in the results as:^[4][5]

mind-blowing to the favor of Trump^[4]

— Théo, pseudonymous French former bank trader, on his survey results (WSJ interview, via Newsweek)

He insisted he had "absolutely no political agenda." The payout reports, meanwhile, were estimates from the start: Newsweek reported around $48 million in profit,. Blockchain-analytics firm Chainalysis estimated that up to 11 accounts could be associated with the trader, potentially netting $83.5 million or more; Newsweek, which reported the same estimate as over $84 million, said it could not independently confirm it. Bloomberg, cited by NBC, also reported that France's gambling regulator had begun examining whether Polymarket complied with its rules.^[4][2]

4. 6 A.M., November 13

Eight days after the election, federal agents arrived at the founder’s door. At about 6 a.m. on Wednesday, November 13, 2024, the FBI searched Coplan’s Manhattan apartment; Coplan, 26, was home. NBC reported that agents seized his cellphone and other electronic devices, which he turned over. The New York Post reported that the Justice Department ordered the “court-authorized law enforcement activity” as part of an investigation into whether the platform accepted bets from U.S. users.^[6][7]

Coplan was not arrested or charged. NBC reported that it was unclear whether he or Polymarket was a target of an investigation. The timing — one week after an election in which the platform’s prices had been widely cited — fueled speculation, but public reporting did not establish a political motive.^[7]

A Polymarket spokesperson called the raid "obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration" — the strongest claim in the file, but an assertion by the company, not a finding. No charge ever tested it. Coplan, posting on X, accused the administration of targeting companies it deemed tied to political opponents:^[7]

It's discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents.^[7]

— Shayne Coplan, Polymarket founder and CEO, on X (via NBC News)

He followed with the platform-native joke, “New phone, who dis?” Polymarket kept operating through the headlines. The investigation’s legal outcome, however, would not arrive until the following summer.^[7]

5. The File Closes

The raid, it later emerged, sat at the end of two long-running federal probes. The Justice Department — with the criminal investigation run by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office — and the CFTC had been investigating whether Polymarket was accepting bets from people in the United States despite the promises the company made in early 2022, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to CNBC.^[8]

Both investigations closed without charges. Polymarket received formal declination notices from the DOJ and CFTC earlier in July 2025, informing the company that the probes — one civil, one criminal — were complete and that no further action would be taken. Bloomberg first reported the notices. The company declined to comment, and Coplan was not criminally charged.^[8]

That is where the record ends: a market that priced a presidential race in the billions, a trader whose profits survive only as estimates, a raid whose motive was asserted by its target and never adjudicated, and a disposition — no charges, no further action — that closed the legal question while leaving every other one open.^[8]