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The "whale" placing big bets on Polymarket in favor of Donald Trump winning the November election is a French national with extensive trading and financial services experience.
Polymarket confirmed to DealBook that some speculation about the whale was correct: A single trader controls the four accounts that have been placing the bets.
The accounts on Polymarket — Fredi9999, Theo4, PrincessCaro, and Michie — had $45 million in open positions as of Thursday morning, per data from the crypto-based betting website.
Most of those bets favor Trump winning the presidential election and the popular vote next month, along with some bets favoring Republican wins in closely contested swing states.
Polymarket said it launched an investigation into the four accounts with the help of outside experts and made contact with the trader.
The betting site told DealBook that it had found no evidence of attempted market manipulation and said that the trader was "taking a directional position based on personal views of the election." Related stories
An analysis by BI found that one of the accounts, Theo4, had made as many as 71 bets a minute earlier this week, and two accounts, Theo4 and Fredi9999, had made as many as 2,500 bets in a 24-hour period.
The flurry of bets ranged from as little as a dollar to tens of thousands of dollars. Given the French national's trading experience, they were likely intended to prevent the price of the betting contracts from rising too much.
Polymarket said that the trader had agreed "not to open further accounts without notice," DealBook reported.
The betting website also said that its current contract odds for a Trump win in November were pretty close to those of other betting websites.
As of Thursday morning, Polymarket's betting odds for Trump winning the presidential election stand at 62% versus 38% for Harris. Kalshi's betting odds favor Trump at 59% compared to 41% for Harris, while the betting website PredictIt has Trump at 58 cents and Harris at 47 cents.
While the odds across the major betting websites favor a Trump win next month, the polls tell a different story.
Harris slightly outperformed Trump on Thursday in the latest national polling average compiled by RealClearPolitics, with Harris at 48.7% and Trump at 48.5%.