- A Polymarket "whale" is betting heavily on Trump winning the Presidential election.
- Four accounts on Polymarket have $46 million in open positions in favor of Trump.
- One of the "whale" accounts, Theo4, has placed as many as 71 bets per minute, according to BI's analysis.
The "whale" placing big bets on Polymarket in favor of Donald Trump winning the November election has ramped up betting on the former president.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal last week, four accounts on the crypto-based betting platform Polymarket have exhibited characteristics that suggest they are linked, either belonging to a single person or a group that's been betting big on a Trump win.
Business Insider compiled the trading activity of the four accounts and found that two of them, Fredi9999 and Theo4, together have placed more than 2,500 bets in the past 24 hours.
Theo4 has placed as many as 71 bets per minute, suggesting that the betting activity could be automated.
Polymarket did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
According to Polymarket data, the four accounts thought to be the Trump whale—Fredi9999, Theo4, PrincessCaro, and Michie—have a combined $46 million in open positions on the betting platform.
The accounts have bet on a range of questions related to the election outcome. They include binary "yes/no" or "Republican/Democrat" questions like, "Will a Republican win the Michigan Presidential Election?" and "Which party wins the 2024 US Presidential Election?"
The latest bets range from a dollar to tens of thousands of dollars, and the amount wagered by Fredi9999 and Theo4 over the past 24 hours has surpassed at least $2 million.
According to a Bloomberg report on Wednesday, Polymarket is "re-checking" its users' personal information to ensure that they are not US citizens using a VPN to access the website. Betting on Polymarket is not available to US-based users.
Bloomberg reported that a person familiar with the matter said the four Polymarket accounts thought to be the Trump whale are not based in the US.
The majority of the bets placed by the four accounts have favored Donald Trump's victory in the Presidential election and Kamala Harris's loss in the popular vote.
Trump's Polymarket odds of winning the election next month soared to 66% on Tuesday, representing the highest level since July 17, when President Joe Biden was still in the race.
More than $1 billion has been wagered on the outcome of the Presidential election on Polymarket.
Meanwhile, Kalshi, a smaller betting website that is open to US citizens following a court ruling earlier this month, has current odds of Trump winning the election at 59% compared to 41% for Kamala Harris.
Both betting market websites paint a different picture than the most recent polls, which are extremely close with two weeks to go before the November 5 vote.
Harris led Trump in the latest national polling average compiled by RealClearPolitics on Tuesday, with Harris at 49.3% compared to 48.5% for Trump.