FBI agents raided Polymarket CEO Shane Coplan's Manhattan apartment early Wednesday morning — just one week after the election betting platform successfully predicted a stunning victory for Donald Trump. The Post reported.
The 26-year-old entrepreneur was woken from his bed in his Soho home at 6 a.m. by U.S. law enforcement and asked to hand over his cellphone and other electronic devices, sources told the Post.
It's “an epic political drama of the worst kind,” a source told the Post. “They could have asked his lawyers about these things. Instead, they did a so-called raid and leaked it to the media so it could be used for obvious political reasons. .”
The reason for the raid was not disclosed to Koplan, but in contrast to traditional polling, Polymarket had accurately predicted an easy victory for Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, sources said. I suspect it was political retaliation.
The official also speculated that the government was likely taking advantage of liberal media reports accusing Polymarket of manipulating the market and manipulating polls in President Trump's favor.
“This is clear political retaliation by the outgoing administration against the polymarket that provided the market for what is correctly called the 2024 presidential election,” the official said.
Mr. Coplan has not been arrested or charged, a Polymarket spokesperson told the Post Wednesday night.
“Polymarket is a fully transparent prediction market that helps the public better understand the events that matter most to them, such as elections,” the spokesperson said.
“We charge no fees, take no trading positions, and make all market data available to observers around the world to analyze as a public good.”
The FBI did not respond to requests for comment.
After his run-in with federal authorities, Koplan posted on X: “Who's against a new cell phone?”
Polymarket does not allow trading in the US, but bettors can circumvent the ban by accessing the site via a VPN.
The FBI investigation comes a week after Koplan said Polimarket planned to return to the United States.
The platform showed Trump had a 58.6% chance of winning on the morning before Election Day and Vice President Kamala Harris had a 41.4% chance, but it also pointed to links between Trump and his allies. are.
Billionaire Trump supporter Peter Thiel has raised about $70 million for Polymarket, according to a Forbes report earlier this year.
Koplan also Photographed with Donald Trump Jr.
In 2022, the online gambling platform will suspend trading in the United States and pay a $1.4 million penalty to settle charges with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for failing to register with the Commission. was forced to.
Since then, the platform has only been available to bettors from other countries. After the election, a mysterious French trader amassed a whopping $85 million in profits from bets on Trump — more than $50 million more than previously reported, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
A week before the election fortune report Analysts at two crypto research firms said they found widespread evidence of wash trading in Polymarket. Wash trading is illegal market manipulation in which traders buy and sell the same entity to create a false impression of market activity.
“Polymarket's terms of service expressly prohibit market manipulation,” a Polymarket spokesperson told Fortune in a statement.
The gambling platform is subject to scrutiny from France's gambling regulator, the Agence National Autonomy, to ensure Polymarket complies with the country's laws.
“We are aware of the existence of this site and are currently investigating its operation and compliance with French gambling law,” a spokesperson said. regulators told Bloomberg.
The National Autonomous Region did not respond to requests for comment.
Polymarket declined to comment on the French investigation.
New gambling markets must receive prior approval from regulators.
The so-called French whale that profited from Trump's victory goes by another name: Theo. He previously said his bets were simply to make money and denied claims he was trying to influence the outcome of the election.
“I have nothing further to add,” Teo told The Wall Street Journal in his final email on Monday. “To be honest, I'm a little fed up with everything. I want to get back to my normal routine.”
