Online betting site Polymarket made headlines last week: a Frenchman, who made his fortune in the financial markets, took advantage of the presidential election to try his luck by betting on Donald Trump's victory back in mid-October. The bet took place on the Polymarket platform. The former trader was convinced that the Republican candidate was underestimated in the polls. He therefore bet USD $30 million on the Republican, a good portion of his considerable fortune. The result: Trump won, and the Frenchman pocketed USD $80 million, a profit of USD $50 million.
The Wall Street Journal interviewed the “whale” after the election, and he explained the secret of the method that enabled him to bet such a large sum of money with a very high level of certainty regarding his winning odds. It's called “neigbour polls”.
“Traditional polls don't take into account the fact that many respondents prefer not to admit they're voting for Trump,” said Theo, an alias he gave to the WSJ. Either Trump supporters were reluctant to tell pollsters they supported the former president, or they didn't want to participate in polls, Theo wrote.
To solve this problem, Theo believes pollsters should use so-called neighbourhood polls, which ask respondents which candidates they think their neighbours will support. The idea is that people don't want to reveal their own preferences, but reveal them indirectly when asked to guess who their neighbours intend to vote for.
Theo cited a handful of public polls conducted in September using the neighbour method alongside the traditional method. These polls showed that support for Harris was several percentage points lower when respondents were asked who their neighbours would vote for, compared to the result when they were asked directly which candidate they supported.
The former trader stated that he had made the bet purely from a financial perspective, without seeking to make a political statement
It is interesting to note that France's gambling regulator is considering banning cryptocurrency prediction platform Polymarket, which made headlines due to user demand around the 2024 US Presidential election.
The French National Gaming Authority (ANJ) is investigating Polymarket's operation and compliance with French gambling laws, Bloomberg reported on 7 November.