Early Wednesday morning, FBI agents raided the Manhattan apartment of Shayne Coplan, the CEO of Polymarket, a prediction-market platform that accurately forecasted Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election. The agents seized Coplan’s phone and other electronic devices during the raid, which comes just days after Polymarket correctly predicted the outcome of the election, while traditional polls had shown Vice President Kamala Harris with a lead. Sources close to Coplan suspect that the raid is politically motivated, suggesting the government is retaliating for Polymarket’s role in challenging the political establishment by making a successful election prediction.
While Coplan was not arrested and no formal explanation was provided for the raid, insiders believe the FBI’s actions are tied to the platform’s controversial connections to Trump supporters, including investor Peter Thiel. Polymarket has faced criticism in the past, with some accusing it of market manipulation due to its election-related betting odds that seemed to favor Trump. A source close to the situation described the raid as “political theater,” implying that it was more about sending a message than enforcing the law.
Polymarket, however, maintains that it is a transparent platform and that it does not engage in political bias or market manipulation. A spokesperson for the platform pointed out that it operates with full transparency, with no trading fees and publicly available data. Polymarket’s troubles are not new—after being banned in the U.S. in 2022, the platform settled a $1.4 million penalty with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for operating without proper registration. Despite the regulatory issues, Polymarket continues to operate outside the U.S., and has even garnered attention for the substantial profits made by international bettors, including a French trader who made $85 million on Trump-related bets.
With the FBI’s raid, the debate over the role of online prediction markets in politics is heating up, with some seeing it as an attempt to silence platforms that offer a different kind of political forecasting. As Coplan jokingly posted about his “new phone” on social media, many are left wondering if the government is trying to make an example of Polymarket for its success in predicting Trump’s election victory.
