A masked French trader, ThĂ©o, bet $30 million on Trump winning the 2024 election—and won $50 million, while traditional polls and mainstream media predicted a Kamala Harris victory. ThĂ©o leveraged the “neighbour vote effect,” outsmarting pollsters who underestimated Trump supporters. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency-based prediction platforms like Polymarket, not constrained by media biases, accurately called the election results. This election marks a shift: prediction markets and podcasts are outpacing traditional media’s influence.
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By Koshiek Karan
A few months ago a masked French trader, known only as Théo, bet $30m on Donald Trump winning the 2024 US election. On the face of it, this resembled a donation more than a bet. After all, an avalanche of credible, longstanding media outlets & famous pollsters predicted a Kamala Harris victory. The New York Times, The Economist, ABC news owned FiveThirtyEight, & a crew of others all echoed the identical outcome – Kamala Harris to win.
The reputation of acclaimed pollsters came revered with high praise. Ann Selzer “the best pollster in politics”, Allan “Nostradamus” Lichtman & polling guru Nate Silver all validated legacy media predicting a Harris victory.
They were all wrong. Reclusive Théo was right & is now $50m richer.
In 2016, 2020 & now 2024 – the polls underestimated Trump. Traditional polls failed to account for the “shy Trump voter effect”. Participants are either reluctant share who they were voting for Trump or didn’t want to participate in polls. To solve this – Théo used “neighbour vote effect”. Participants were asked which candidate they expected their neighbours to vote for.
Participants would indirectly reveal their voting preferences when asked to guess their neighbour’s vote. Théo compared traditional polls to the neighbour vote method & the difference was stark – Trump was a clear favourite.
Unlike mainstream media & pollsters – prediction markets proved to be incredibly accurate this election. Platforms including Kalshi, Robinhood & Polymarket had Trump cemented as the favourite. The election was called on prediction markets long before mainstream media broke the results. In fact, prediction markets were calling state results up to eight hours before mainstream media published the final results.
The breakthrough predictor of this election goes to cryptocurrency based prediction platform, Polymarket – the same exchange Théo placed his election bets. The platform racked up in excess of $3.6bn in election trading volumes. On election day, Trump’s chances of a win stood at 62% on Polymarket. His odds rocketed higher in real time. Polymarket also predicted the results of each state with near perfect accuracy.
How do unregulated, decentralized & anonymous platforms end up more accurate & much faster than traditional channels? Simply by design. Excessive regulation, centralized data manipulation & mandatory disclosures act as filters to the truth. Paid for polls are heavily skewed towards the political party signing the cheque. News agencies are often incentivized to sculpt content aligned to their core audience. This means cherry-picking suitable polls to reinforce audience confirmation bias. Creating insulated echo chambers reverberating with groupthink is great for satisfying the ad-click & subscription machine. It ends up being terrible for the truth.
Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post & recently penned an impactful letter to their readers. He decided they would not endorse a presidential candidate. His view: legacy media has become inaccurate, lacks credibility & is being suffocated by new media. Here are some excerpts:
“Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased”
While I do not and will not push my personal interest, I will also not allow this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance — overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs — not without a fight. It’s too important. The stakes are too high. Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice”
Roughly 250,000 subscribers cancelled their Washington Post subscriptions since this letter validating the appeal of remaining within the cosy confines of an echo chamber.
Speculators, gamblers & the outright degenerates on prediction platforms have a single, primary motive. To profit from the bet. To do that, every last bit of information needs to leveraged. Material, non-public information which doesn’t trickle its way into mainstream is acted upon in anonymous prediction markets. It’s the modern, democratized equivalent of age-old dark pool trading. The system becomes increasingly efficient with higher pools of liquidity (in this case – $3.6bn). When you strip away all the existing limitations for arbitrage – you have an incredibly efficient system.
Are prediction markets bulletproof? Absolutely not. These are systems are still in their infancy, not immune to bad actors & face constant regulatory hurdles preventing widespread adoption. Anonymity may absolve accountability. But skewed polls & legacy media isn’t anonymous. They are however guilty of misinformation, shifting public perception & thriving on divisive content. Then there’s crushing weight of endless bureaucracy suffocating progress. After Théo’s win, France is now looking to ban Polymarket.
This US election is recorded as the most expensive in history. Nearly $16bn was spent on campaigns. Harris raised $1bn (& is now $20m in debt) while Trump raised $382m. Their media blitz strategies were completely different. Harris prioritized high profile celebrity performances, Hollywood endorsements, glossy late night TV shows & intelligent panel discussions. Trump opted for authenticity, relatability & the informal conversational approach.
Trump decided early on to really pinpoint the young male vote. Young voters make up 16% of the electorate & was a demographic Trump struggled to capture in 2020. This time around Trump secured the young male vote decisively. This election men aged 18-29 shifted nearly 30 points to the right (vs 2020).
His strategy: task 27 year old Alex Bruesewitz to run his podcast circuit & making sure he ran it all past his son, Barron for sign-off. It ended up being a genius move. Trump interviewed with Logan Paul, Theo Von, The Undertaker & of course, Joe Rogan. The Joe Rogan podcast has clocked more than 47 million views.
It’s undeniable Trump’s podcast tour significantly contributed to securing the young male vote. Yet another hard learnt lesson for legacy media who often relegate longer form content in favour of attention grabbing micro-news to maximize ad-revenue. Long-form conversations are the future of influence.
We’re in an era where podcasts beat paragraphs & prediction markets beat polls.
Many sections of legacy media has ended up lethargic, resistant to adapt & allergic to contrarian views. Their irrelevance has only been accelerated through social media, technology & more torch bearers of free speech.
This is the great reset.
It’s finally time to Make Media Great Again.
Read also:
The Economist: The world faces now its worst trade wars since 1930s- Rob Hersov on Trump’s win: A new path for the US and lessons for South Africa
- Trump’s historic comeback wins global praise
*Koshiek Karan is the founder & CEO of digital media company BankerX. He is an ex-investment banker & entrepreneur with extensive experience in capital markets: [email protected]
