An anonymous account placed a bet of nearly $200,000 on Polymarket on Oct. 31, exactly one hour before the New York Times and Siena poll results were published. When the polling figures were officially released to the public showing an edge for Nebraska Senator Pete Ricketts, the swift position netted a profit of more than $77,000.
A New York Times investigative report uncovered indications of insider trading across two prediction markets, decentralized platform Polymarket and exchange Kalshi, ahead of the public release of the political poll. The rapid movement of capital within such a tight window has raised serious questions over potential data leaks prior to official publication.
The findings were revealed by Brett Goldstein, a researcher at Vanderbilt University’s Vanderbilt Institute of National Security. Goldstein discovered that the timing of the wager and the size of the bet showed an unusual pattern for a random guess.
The spotlight is now on ethical loopholes that emerge when high-value polling data enters betting markets before the general public has access to it.
Critical Minutes Before the Poll Was Announced
The betting pattern identified by Goldstein showed precise timing. The Polymarket user selected a Pete Ricketts victory contract exactly sixty minutes before the New York Times and Siena published their joint poll results. Once the survey data was released and confirmed the senator’s lead, the contract value spiked immediately, yielding a net profit of $77,000 for the bettor.
The trader’s activity was not limited to a single exchange. The researcher found that the same account also placed sizable positions on Kalshi in related betting markets. Placing funds in parallel across two different platforms reinforced suspicions that the moves were executed with foreknowledge of the results before the poll went live.
Goldstein stated that the chronological sequence and bet size could hardly be categorized as mere coincidence. According to the Vanderbilt University researcher, the findings warrant a thorough investigation to determine whether there was access to insider information.
Contrasting Responses from Two Platforms and a Military Precedent
The handling of the incident by the two exchanges highlighted contrasting responses. Polymarket confirmed that it detected the suspicious trading activity and is currently conducting an internal investigation. Meanwhile, Kalshi declined to comment on the betting activity on its platform.
Suspicions of trades based on confidential information in prediction markets are not unprecedented. In April, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted a service member named Gannon Ken Van Dyke. The service member pocketed $400,000 in profits on Polymarket by leveraging classified military data regarding an operation to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The Van Dyke case demonstrated that non-public information can be exploited as a speculative instrument on blockchain-based markets. The betting episode ahead of the New York Times poll now poses a fresh test of transparency for the prediction market ecosystem.
For traders in political betting markets, the situation serves as a stark reminder that the greatest risk often comes from trading against parties who hold information before it is made public.
Reported by Cointelegraph.
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