{"id":271,"date":"2024-11-08T13:03:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T13:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=271"},"modified":"2025-09-27T23:52:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T23:52:32","slug":"the-trump-whale-that-betting-dude-who-correctly-called-the-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=271","title":{"rendered":"The “Trump Whale” (that betting dude!) who correctly called the election – made $50 million…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This bet (bets) on polymarket<\/a> was widely followed before the election. Wow. It was a Frenchman. Lots of champagne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is from the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mystery trader who calls himself \u2018Th\u00e9o\u2019 is on track for a payday of nearly $50 million<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only did he see Donald Trump<\/a> winning the presidency, he wagered that Trump would win the popular vote\u2014an outcome that many political observers saw as unlikely. \u201cTh\u00e9o,\u201d as the trader called himself, also bet that Trump would win the \u201cblue wall\u201d swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now, Th\u00e9o is set for a huge payday. He made his wagers on Polymarket, a crypto-based betting platform, using four anonymous accounts. Although he has declined to share his identity, he has been communicating with a Wall Street Journal reporter since an article on Oct. 18 drew attention to his bets.<\/p>\n

In dozens of emails, Th\u00e9o said his wager was essentially a bet against the accuracy of polling data. Describing himself as a wealthy Frenchman who had previously worked as a trader for several banks, he told the Journal that he began applying his mathematical know-how to analyze U.S. polls over the summer.<\/p>\n

He concluded the polls were overstating support for Vice President Kamala Harris<\/a>. Unlike most armchair political commentators, he put his money where his mouth was, betting more than $30 million that Trump would win.<\/p>\n

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In messages sent privately to a reporter before Election Day, Th\u00e9o predicted that Trump would take 49% or 50% of all votes cast in the U.S., beating Harris. He also predicted that Trump would win six of the seven battleground states.<\/p>\n

As of Wednesday afternoon, analysts were projecting that Trump would win the popular vote<\/a>, with nearly 72 million votes to Harris\u2019s 67.1 million, although millions of ballots had yet to be counted in California and other states. Betting markets regarded it as a near-certainty that Trump would win the popular vote.<\/p>\n

Trump is also favored to win all seven swing states, betting markets show. The one state where Th\u00e9o thought Harris might win, Michigan, was called for Trump on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Journal has confirmed that Th\u00e9o is the trader behind the Polymarket accounts that were systematically purchasing wagers on a Trump victory. Polymarket has corroborated some parts of his story, saying that the individual behind the bets was a French national with extensive trading experience and a financial-services background.<\/p>\n

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In his emails and a Zoom conversation with a reporter, Th\u00e9o repeatedly criticized U.S. opinion polls. He was particularly critical of polls conducted by mainstream-media outlets that, in his view, were biased toward Democrats and tended to produce outlier poll results that favored Harris.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn France this is different!! The pollster credibility is more important: they want to be as close as possible to the actual results. Culture is different on this,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Th\u00e9o shared a table of numbers he had compiled based on RealClearPolitics polling averages, showing that Trump had overperformed his swing-state polling numbers in 2020. Given the tight polls in swing states in 2024, Th\u00e9o reasoned that a similar overperformance by Trump would easily push him into the lead.<\/p>\n

Polls failed to account for the \u201cshy Trump voter effect,\u201d Th\u00e9o said. Either Trump backers were reluctant to tell pollsters that they supported the former president, or they didn\u2019t want to participate in polls, Th\u00e9o wrote. <\/p>\n

****************************<\/p>\n

The data helped convince him to put on his long-shot bet that Trump would win the popular vote. At the time that Th\u00e9o made those wagers, bettors on Polymarket were assessing the chances of a Trump popular-vote victory at less than 40%.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This bet (bets) on polymarket was widely followed before the election. Wow. It was a Frenchman. Lots of champagne. This article is from the Wall Street Journal. The mystery trader who calls himself \u2018Th\u00e9o\u2019 is on track for a payday of nearly $50 million Not only did he see Donald Trump winning the presidency, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11113,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions\/11113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}