Apr 19, 2026
A series of profitable Polymarket bets seems to be too well-timed to be just luck.
Recent data published by NPR (1) from the analytics firm Bubblemaps showed that an anonymous user received $316,346 in gains from bets aimed at former President Joe Biden’s presidential pardons.
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Many of these contracts correctly wagered that Biden would pardon four individuals, Jim Biden, Sen. Adam Schiff, and former representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, when the odds were almost non-existent. The same Polymarket trader also cashed in by “guessing” Biden would pardon his son Hunter.
If Columbia Law School’s Joshua Mitts (1) were a betting man, he would place “the odds of this happening by random chance” at “virtually zero.”
The mystery of the Kraken
But even though this appears to be a case of insider trading, finding and prosecuting whoever’s involved is not easy. Bubblemaps used AI tools to discover that this single Polymarket predictor had only one deposit address on the centralized cryptocurrency exchange (CEX) Kraken.
CEXs like Kraken collect personal data from everyone who sets up an account, but they aren’t always forthcoming with these details.
“Exchanges like Kraken don’t offer information on individual accounts,” Bubblemaps’ founder Nick Vaiman told NPR, “We’ve tried desperately, but they don’t give up this information easily.”
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Privileged information?
How many predictions are really privileged knowledge?
This isn’t the first large bet on prediction markets that has raised eyebrows for its uncanny accuracy.
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Another recent example on Polymarket was when a user named Magamyman banked $553,000 (2) after buying contracts on Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who would no longer lead the country. That bet was shortly before the U.S. and Israel’s Operation Epic Fury (3) on February 28.
When Mitts dug into this case further, he discovered six new Polymarket (4) accounts that made the same wager, which had only about 17% odds of happening. In total, these accounts made an estimated $1.2 million.
It’s not just valuable political intel that’s turning into massive prediction market profits. Mitts pointed out huge wins for extremely specific bets on everything from Google’s Year in Search rankings (5) to Taylor Swift’s engagement announcement (6).
According to Mitts’s research, it’s likely that $143 million (7) in Polymarket profits between 2024 and 2026 went into the pockets of insiders.
The politics of policing prediction markets
Some states want further regulations on prediction market practices, but the Trump administration continues to push back.
In a bold move against state-level policies, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently sued (8) Illinois, Connecticut and Arizona for trying to regulate prediction markets using state gambling laws.
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The explanation for their response was that prediction markets are more akin to financial markets than traditional gambling. Specifically, the CFTC argued that prediction markets handle derivative contracts called swaps (9), which fall under its purview.
The Trump family isn’t an impartial observer of the prediction market craze. Notably, Donald Trump Jr. is an official advisor to both Polymarket (10) and the competitor Kalshi (11). And there’s money to be made by those involved.
CNBC (12) reported that volumes for predictions are rising, with $60 billion year-to-date in 2026, versus $51 billion in 2025. Founders of these markets, like Kalshi’s Luana Lopes Lara (13), have become some of the youngest billionaires on earth. With all these trends in place, the financial firm Bernstein feels confident predicting that this industry is on course to hit $1 trillion (12) in 2030.
That’s a big payout for something not considered gambling by the federal government.
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
NPR (1); NPR (2); The White House (3); Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance (4); DeFi Rate (5); The Wall Street Journal (6); SSRN (7); NPR (8); CFTC (9); Politico (10); Kalshi (11); CNBC (12); Forbes (13)
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Eric Esposito is a freelance contributor on MoneyWise with an interest in financial markets, investing, and trading. In addition to MoneyWise, Eric’s work can be found on financial publications such as WallStreetZen and CoinDesk. When not researching the latest stock market trends, Eric enjoys biking, walking his dog, and spending time with family in Central Florida. Eric holds a BA in English from Quinnipiac University.
