A mysterious whale on Polymarket wins $50 million; how he correctly predicted the election outcome

Author: Alexander Osipovich, WSJ

Compiled by: Wang Eryu, PANews

The mysterious trader known as the "Trump whale" is expected to make nearly $50 million in profit after making a series of bold bets related to the presidential election.

He not only believes that Donald Trump will win the presidential election but also bet that Trump will win the popular vote—an outcome many political observers consider unlikely. The trader, who goes by "Théo," also bet that Trump would win key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, often referred to as the "blue wall."

Now, Théo is poised to reap substantial rewards. He placed his bets using four anonymous accounts on the crypto prediction platform Polymarket. Although he declined to reveal his identity, he has been in contact with a reporter from The Wall Street Journal since an article on October 18 drew attention to his wagers.

In dozens of emails, Théo stated that his bets are essentially wagers on the accuracy of polling data. He claims to be a wealthy Frenchman who has worked as a trader at several banks, and he told The Wall Street Journal that he started applying his mathematical skills to analyze U.S. polling data this summer.

He believes that polls overstate the support for Vice President Kamala Harris. Unlike most armchair political commentators, he puts his money where his mouth is, betting more than $30 million on Trump’s victory.

On Tuesday night, as election results began to roll in, Théo was in high spirits. He said he woke up in the middle of the night in France to check the election results.

Trump's strong performance in Florida indicated a high likelihood of winning the popular vote, he wrote: "I am very happy and confident about my bets!"

In a private message sent to reporters the day before the election, Théo predicted that Trump would receive 49% or 50% of the national vote, defeating Harris. He also predicted that Trump would win six out of seven battleground states.

As of Wednesday afternoon, analysts predicted that Trump would win the popular vote, with Trump receiving nearly 72 million votes and Harris receiving 67.1 million votes, although millions of ballots in California and other states were still uncounted. The betting markets considered Trump's victory in the popular vote almost a certainty.

Betting markets indicated that Trump was also likely to win all seven swing states. On Wednesday, Michigan, which was thought to be leaning towards Harris, was predicted to be a state Trump would win.

The Wall Street Journal has confirmed that Théo is the trader behind the Polymarket whale accounts, which systematically purchased bets on Trump’s victory. Polymarket confirmed part of his claims, stating that the person behind these bets is a Frenchman with extensive trading experience and a background in financial services.

Théo stated that he is betting his own money on Trump with the aim of making a large profit, and that he "absolutely has no political agenda." The Wall Street Journal could not verify the truth of these claims. The Wall Street Journal also could not rule out any connections between Théo and political organizations or Trump allies.

In his emails and Zoom conversations with the reporter, Théo repeatedly criticized American polling. He specifically criticized polls conducted by mainstream media, which he believes are biased towards the Democrats and often produce favorable polling results for Harris.

"In France, it's different; the credibility of polls is more important: they want the results to be as close to reality as possible. The culture is different in this regard," he wrote.

Théo shared a numerical table based on the average of RealClearPolitics polling, showing Trump performing well in the 2020 swing state polls. Given that polling results in swing states for 2024 are very close, Théo inferred that if Trump could perform similarly well, he would easily take the lead.

Théo stated that polls fail to account for the "shy Trump voter effect." Théo wrote that either Trump supporters are unwilling to tell pollsters they support the former president, or they do not want to participate in polls.

To address this issue, Théo believes pollsters should use what is known as neighbor polling, which involves asking respondents which candidate they think their neighbors will support. The idea is that people may not want to disclose their preferences, but when asked to guess who their neighbors plan to vote for, they may indirectly reveal their own preferences.

Théo cited several polling results released in September that used both neighbor voting methods and traditional polling methods. These polls showed that when respondents were asked who their neighbors would vote for, Harris's support was several percentage points lower than the results from directly asking them which candidate they supported.

For Théo, this proves that polling organizations have once again underestimated Trump's support. This data helped him place bets that Trump would win the popular vote. When Théo placed his bets, bettors on Polymarket believed Trump had less than a 40% chance of winning the popular vote.

As Théo celebrated the election results on election night, he revealed another part of his successful betting analysis. In an email, he told The Wall Street Journal that he commissioned a major polling firm to conduct a survey to measure the neighbor effect, but he declined to disclose the name of the firm. He wrote that the results were "stunning and favorable to Trump!"

Théo refused to share these survey results, stating that the agreement he reached with the polling firm required him to keep the results confidential. However, he argued that American polling organizations should use the neighbor method in future surveys to avoid repeating embarrassing mistakes.

Théo stated: "If the latest polls measured the neighbor effect, public opinion would be much clearer."