In the final weeks of the US elections, online election markets gained prominence as bettors wagered billions on the presumed winners. On November 5, 2024, Donald Trump completed a major comeback from his double-impeached first term four years ago to become the 47th President of the United States. While his victory came as a surprise for many, prediction markets had asserted for some time that this would be the case.
Prediction markets will present a potential payout of about $450m to those who bet on Trump. The markets sharply diverged from opinion polls that presented a slight edge for Harris. In this manner, prediction markets can “measure crowd wisdom where no hard data is available,” said Samuel S.-H. Wang, a Princeton University neuroscience professor who is also the director of the Electoral Innovation Lab, which studies elections and electoral reform.
Kalshi alone saw 28,000 people bet on Harris and 40,000 on Trump.
Between offshore Polymarket, which deals in cryptocurrency, and U.S.-based Kalshi, these two exchanges estimate total payouts of about $450m just for Trump bettors. A third site, an academic research group called PredictIt, did not disclose its payouts, but the numbers could easily reach similar heights. Kalshi alone saw 28,000 people bet on Harris and 40,000 on Trump. Polymarket did not disclose how many people bet on which candidate, but the site has an estimated payout purse of $287m. At the same time, Kalshi’s payout stands at $159m.
A French investor called the “Polymarket whale” will end up the biggest beneficiary of the election markets after making an estimated $40m worth of Trump-based bets. Should Trump win the popular vote, which he very well may do, the whale will win approximately $80m.