What We Know About the Mystery Trader Betting Big on a Trump Win

CLOSE X
By Weekend Staff Writer
✓ Link copied to clipboard!

A mysterious online trader is betting big on former President Donald Trump beating Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race.

Trump and Harris are locked in a tight race with less than three weeks until Election Day. Polls show the two candidates separated by only tiny margins in battleground states. But online betting markets, where individuals are putting millions of real dollars on the results of the presidential race, have broken toward Trump in recent days.

Polymarket, one of the leading political betting markets that is based offshore and partially funded by Peter Thiel, gave Trump about a 60 percent chance off winning the election as of Wednesday, while Harris had a 40 percent chance of victory. Betting odds have fluctuated throughout the election and may change based on current events and polls that could affect the outcome of the race.

But one trader has appeared to be influencing the market by betting millions of dollars on a Trump victory.

As of late Tuesday, the trader, only known as Fredi9999, has purchased more than 15 million shares, valued at $8.7 million, betting that Trump would win the election.

They have also purchased more than 3 million shares betting that Trump would win the popular vote, and nearly 1.5 million shares that Trump would carry Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state that is viewed as the most likely tipping-point state this cycle. All told, Fredi9999’s position is valued at more than $14 million on the platform.

Who this trader may be, as well as why they may be betting so much on the presidential race, remains unknown. Polymarket is a crypto-based prediction market largely out of the reach of U.S. regulators, and its users are anonymous. Fredi9999’s profile provides few details about their identity, just that they joined the platform in June 2024. They’ve been adding to their positions, in roughly $500 bets, as recently as Wednesday morning.

Laura Beers, a professor of history and expert on political betting at American University, told Newsweek there are numerous reasons an anonymous trader would be betting so much money on a Trump victory. For instance, there is historical precedent for using the idea of betting on politics “as a hedge.”

“If Fredi9999 has business interests that stand to lose from a Trump victory, they could be betting on one to offset those potential future loses,” she said. “There is evidence that British bettors used election markets this way in the early 20th century.”

However, she noted that the trader “has been involved in significant in-and-out trading,” suggesting “that they might be seeking to profit from market manipulation of their own devising, or just to profit from taking advantage of what they see as temporary shifts in the market.”

The Commodities and Futures Trading Commission has previously warned about the potential for manipulation in betting markets, which were illegal in the U.S. until recently.

The trader could also be trying to influence the election by shifting the betting odds in Trump’s favor, she said.

“It’s unclear whether that would help Trump by making him looking successful, or energize Kamala supporters who are afraid that the markets are showing her as an underdog,” she said.

The trader’s large bets have shifted the market toward Trump, Rajiv Sethi, a professor of economics, wrote in a recent Substack post. On Oct. 7, the volume of contracts being traded on Polymarket caused a spike in Trump’s chances of winning, based no apparent news event.

He suggested the trader is using a “very particular strategy” of “placing large limit buy orders slightly above the current best bid, effectively setting a floor on the price of the Trump contract.”

“This could be someone with deep pockets who firmly believes that Trump will win the Rust Belt and the election with it, and wants to accumulate a large number of contracts at prices that appear cheap,” Sethi wrote on Oct. 9.

The trader could even be a consortium of individuals, he wrote.

He continued, “Alternatively, it could be someone who wants to have a price impact and make Trump appear to have better prospects than the market would otherwise suggest, in the expectation that this will boost morale and keep donations and volunteer effort flowing.”

These two scenarios, he warned, would compromise the integrity of Polymarket’s forecasting accuracy. He noted it could also be someone who has information they believe would shape the outcome of the race.

Kalshi, a separate betting market that is regulated and open to U.S. traders, gives Trump slightly lower odds—55 percent, to Harris’ 45 percent—of victory.

Forbes reported that Trump’s betting odds also surged after Elon Musk, the CEO of companies including Tesla and X, gave his stamp of approval to Polymarket.

Whomever Fredi9999 is, the trader’s bullishness extends beyond Trump to other GOP figures. They have also bought contracts in support of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, though both had ended their presidential campaigns by the time the profile was created.

While betting markets give Trump a narrow edge, polls still point to a tight race. FiveThirtyEight’s polling average showed Harris leading Trump by an average of 2.4 points on Tuesday. One month earlier on September 15, Harris was up 2.6 points in the aggregate.

Newsweek reached out to Polymarket for comment via email.