It appears a wealthy Frenchman is behind a massive swing in Donald Trump’s favor on the political trading website Polymarket, which listed the former president as having a 62 percent chance of winning the election on Thursday morning.
The man’s nationality and a brief biography of him, which described the gambler as having “extensive trading experience and a financial services background,” was unmasked in a report by The New York Times.
The report confirmed speculation from an online community of political gamblers, who have tried all October—going as far as making contact with the man in an online chat—to find out who, exactly, was pumping tens of millions into a political trading market. While the online sleuths were never able to identify the man, they studied his syntax over text to estimate he was likely from a French-speaking country.
Polymarket said it completed an investigation and made contact with the man, who is a French national. They determined he didn’t intend to manipulate the market and that he is, simply put, a really rich guy who’s confident Trump is destined for a second stint in the White House.
While Polymarket indicated to the Times it wasn’t the high roller’s intention to move prediction markets in favor of Trump, he appears to have done just that.
Political polls have painted Trump and Kamala Harris as being in a neck-and-neck race since the summer, but Polymarket has undergone a massive shift since the Frenchman pumped a reported $28 million into pro-Trump predictions from four accounts: Fredi9999, Theo4, PrincessCaro, and Michie.
Harris had a 53.9 percent chance of winning on Aug. 15, according to Polymarket, and still had a slight lead with a 50.6 percent chance of winning a month ago. Things took a sharp turn after the anonymous trader began buying shares on a Trump win and iterations of it, like the ex-president winning Pennsylvania or the popular vote.
Other prediction markets, like PredictIt and Kalshi, have also shifted to favor a Trump win in recent weeks, but it’s unclear if the mystery millionaire—or perhaps even billionaire—had anything to do with it. The Times reports that the Frenchman, who was not identified by name, has agreed to stop making new accounts on Polymarket without giving advanced notice.
Conservatives like Elon Musk have propped up Polymarket as a legitimate barometer on the state of the presidential race. Some experts fear Trump and his allies might point to online wagering markets as proof of real support for the former president should he lose next month and claim the election was stolen from him.
Word of Trump’s momentum on the site has reached the GOP candidate himself. He conceded in a rally last week that he doesn’t understand exactly how Polymarket works, but indicated he’s pleased with the “poly poll.”
“I don’t know what the hell it means,” Trump said, “but it means we’re doing pretty well.”
Musk has also been quick to brag about Trump’s new lead on political markets.
“Trump now leading Kamala by 3% in betting markets,” Musk wrote on Oct. 6. “More accurate than polls, as actual money is on the line.”
The billionaire Musk, who’s recently become a MAGA mega donor, responded to a post a day later that featured a Polymarket graph trending in Trump’s favor. “Victory is not enough,” he wrote, “it must be absolutely decisive victory.”
The Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg has raged at people like Musk who view Polymarket as being equivalent to—or better than—political polling. He’s referred to the sharing of market movement by conservatives as “Polymarket voodoo,” which he’s described as being particularly useless analytically because Americans have not been able to legally use Polymarket since 2022.
“Of course [Polymarket] could be manipulated by wealthy people from Russia, and China, and Iran, and Syria, wherever else, right?” Rosenberg said in an appearance on MeidasTouch this month. “You know, North Korea could be buying up and pushing the markets and the idea that we’re supposed to take all of that seriously—and this has some kind of relevance to our election—it’s so bonkers.”
Polymarket is funded by the GOP mega-donor Peter Thiel, a close friend of Musk.
The website works as a stock market of sorts for current events, paying out winners in cryptocurrency based on when they buy into a market. With Trump currently given a 62 percent chance of winning the election, those who buy a Trump contract on Thursday and hold it through the election would return $1 for every 64¢ invested.
Shayne Coplan, the 26-year-old founder of Polymarket, indicated to the New Yorker this week that market movement favoring Trump—even with whales like the anon Frenchman leading it—are proof that the market is working as its meant to.
“There is nothing stopping people from going and buying something that they think is underpriced, but they’re not doing it right now,” he reportedly said of Harris’ share price, adding, “because no one has enough conviction that it should be worth more.”