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Yesterday the FBI raided the NYC home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan and seized his phone and electronics. The raid took place around 6 a.m. and Coplan was home when the agents entered his apartment. Later in the day, the Department of Justice announced it was investigating the prediction market for allowing U.S. citizens to make trades on the platform, which is illegal.
On Polymarket, users can bet on events with binary outcomes. As people place bets on something, the odds of the outcome shift. Polymarket gained attention during the presidential election for predicting that Trump would win. Its CEO Shayne Coplan called the site the future of news. In the end, Polymarket was right about the election if not about being the future of news.
The U.S. has done a lot to normalize online gambling in the last ten years, but these kinds of predictive betting markets are still illegal here. A U.S. citizen can log on to the site and watch the markets move but they aren’t allowed to lay a bet. It got in trouble over this before and settled a dispute with the Commodity Future Trading Commission in 2022. It paid a $1.4 million fine.
Polymarket and Coplan said this has nothing to do with Americans using the site. “This is obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election,” Polymarket told Axios after the raid. “Polymarket is a fully transparent prediction market that helps everyday people better understand the events that matter most to them, including elections.”
Later that day, Coplan posted about the problem on X and, once again, blamed Biden for being upset about the election results. “It’s discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents. We are deeply committed to being non-partisan, and today is no different, but the incumbents should do some self-reflecting and recognize that taking a more pro-business, pro-startup approach may be what would have changed their fate this election,” Coplan said in a post on X.
The public statements from Polymarket and its CEO reflect their notion that the gambling website is more than that. Coplan sees it as a vehicle for news, a way to make sense of a chaotic world.
Notably, the FBI has not raided the home of Tarek Mansour—the CEO of prediction market Kalshi. Mansour lives in Massachusetts and his site also predicted Trump’s victory. He also made several public appearances during the last month of the election talking about Kalshi and prediction markets. His home remains unraided by the FBI.
“Polymarket has provided value to 10’s of millions of people this election cycle, while causing harm to nobody. We’re deeply proud of that,” Coplan said on X. “I’m also proud to say that the future of America, and in particular American entrepreneurship, has never been brighter. In the face of adversity, we build 🦅”
Elon Musk, a man who has bought his way into government, replied to the post with “Indeed.”
Coplan sent a “🦅” back.
