Unusual Polymarket Bets on Peace Prize Winner Spur Probe
(Bloomberg) -- Norwegian officials in charge of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize are investigating information that online bets on this year’s recipient surged overnight, suggesting a potential leak of information.
Bets for Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for fighting for democracy, spiked at the Polymarket betting site shortly after midnight Norwegian time, according to the information on its website. The secretive five-member committee had made a decision on Monday, according to local media reports.
“We take this very seriously,” Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, said by phone. “It seems we have been prey to a criminal actor who wants to earn money on our information.”
One trader, operating under the username dirtycup, wagered around $70,000 on a Machado victory just hours before officials were due to announce their decision. That investor, who had only opened their Polymarket account this month and had never used it to bet on any other markets, ended up making around $30,000 in profit, data on Polymarket’s website showed.
The story was first reported by local newspapers Aftenposten and Finansavisen. Three accounts at Polymarket that had mainly placed bets on Machado, made a combined profit of about $90,000, according to Finansavisen.
Polymarket secured a $2 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange Inc., owner of the New York Stock Exchange, earlier this week, a deal that valued the firm at roughly $8 billion.
The platform allows users to bet on the outcome of real-world events, ranging from sports games and economic decisions to the most played track on Taylor Swift’s latest album. It’s come under fire in the past for offering markets in ethically gray areas, such as the timing of Pope Francis’s death.
A Polymarket spokesperson declined to comment.
In major prediction markets, traders buy “yes” or “no” shares tracking the outcome of an event. The amount of buying and selling of those instruments determines the implied probability — and therefore the price — of each outcome at any point in time.
Polymarket agreed with regulators to stop serving US-based users in 2022 because it wasn’t a registered exchange. A week after the 2024 presidential election, one that Polymarket users wagered more than $3 billion on, its founder Shayne Coplan’s apartment was raided by FBI agents.
After Trump took office, the federal probe was dropped, although Polymarket, still doesn’t allow US residents to trade on its website.
The Nobel Institute’s Harpviken said he doesn’t recall any similar events regarding the peace prize even though there had been “some leaks” about 15 years ago, “when more people had information about the winners before the announcement.”
“We will look closely at this to find out what has happened,” he said. “Secrecy for us is very important.”
(Updates with comments from official in third paragraph.)
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