All Bets Are Off: Did Harris’ Campaign Try to Tilt Polymarket Odds?

The following article, All Bets Are Off: Did Harris’ Campaign Try to Tilt Polymarket Odds?, was first published on The Black Sphere. The 2024 presidential election was a circus—and not the fun kind with clowns and popcorn, but the kind with a lion loose in the tent and the FBI playing the ringmaster. At the center of this spectacle was Polymarket. This company created a prediction site so precise it made traditional pollsters look like fortune-tellers guessing lottery numbers. So much so that when the FBI raided the founder’s home shortly after Trump’s landslide victory, the timing screamed, “Nothing to see here, folks!” And if the raid wasn’t juicy enough, whispers of Kamala Harris’ campaign allegedly tampering with betting markets added another act to the sideshow. Polymarket: A New Kind of Crystal Ball Polymarket isn’t your grandmother’s Gallup poll. This crypto-powered prediction platform lets users bet on outcomes, with odds shaped by the wisdom of the crowd. It’s like Wall Street and Main Street teamed with Vegas, but for elections. The result? Data that actually reflects public sentiment, not some skewed, overly-optimistic pollster fantasy. Like I did, Polymarket called Trump’s win early, while traditional pollsters and analysts were busy playing...