Polymarket traders penciled in 90% of the chance that Kennedy will drop out on Friday.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate, announced that he would suspend his campaign. This sparked a frenzy of betting among Polymarket customers.
The Polymarket bet that Kennedy would end his presidential campaign before Friday caused controversy, as the bettors were unsure whether or not it was resolved.
The wager that attracted more than $300,000 stated that the market will resolve in affirmative if the candidate “officially announces” his withdrawal from the nail biting November election.
Kennedy Confuses Polymarket Bettors
The traders at Polymarket had estimated that Kennedy was likely to cancel his appearance in Arizona on Friday, just before the speech.
As he addressed his fans, however, the odds dropped to just 6% following his announcement that he wouldn’t completely abandon his bid for president, but would withdraw from crucial battleground states such as Arizona.
He said, “I am not ending my campaign. I am simply suspending it.”
Our polling consistently showed that if I stayed on the ballot in battleground states I would hand the election to the Democrats with whom I disagreed on the most fundamental issues.
Some traders also referred to articles in the news for insight, but this confusion was exacerbated by conflicting news reports from major media outlets.
One article shared by Fox News stated that Kennedy had “dropped his White House campaign,” while a from Reuters stated that Kennedy “abandoned [his] campaign on Friday.”
This is not the first controversy that Polymarket bettors have faced.
The platform was faced with a $680,000 dispute earlier in the year related to LayerZero’s airdrop. This was finally settled by UMA, a DeFi protocol which uses token-based votes to resolve disputes using what it calls its “decentralized fact machine.
After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced, the betting odds at Polymarket have shifted to former President Donald Trump.
Polymarket under scrutiny as trading volume increases
Five United States Senators, and three House Representatives called earlier this month for a prohibition on betting activities related to the 2024 Presidential Election.
The group is composed of notable figures including Senators Jeff Merkley and Richard Blumenthal and Representatives Jamie Raskin, John Sarbanes and Elizabeth Warren.
In a letter addressed to Rostin Behram, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission(CFTC), lawmakers stressed the dangers that these betting markets can have on the political landscape.
The group expressed concern over the possibility that billionaires could use large bets to influence election results, thus eroding the public’s trust in the democratic system.
Political bets replace political convictions in voting with financial calculations.
Polymarket, launched in 2020, is a decentralized prediction-market platform that allows users to bet using cryptocurrency on the outcome of real world events.
The platform makes use of the USDC stablecoin to allow participants to purchase and sell shares based on the probability of future events.
Polymarket recently reached a record trading volume.
The platform has reached $1 billion monthly trading volume, a first, as interest in the US elections grows. $343 million was recorded in July.
