SUMMARY

• Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan and his market niche gained mainstream recognition in 2024 following the U.S. election.
• Alongside Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and the cryptocurrency industry. Prediction markets saw success, as the GOP’s strong performance defied mainstream media and polling expectations.

Prediction markets, including Polymarket, have emerged as the true winners of the 2024 U.S. election, alongside Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and the cryptocurrency industry. The GOP’s surprisingly strong performance caught many off guard, especially those who relied solely on mainstream media and traditional polling. However, for those tracking the odds on prediction platforms such as Polymarket, Kalshi, and PredictIt throughout the year, the election result was well within the realm of possibility.

Koleman Strumpf, an economics professor at Wake Forest University, commented, “The markets were far and away the best forecast of the 2024 election.” While traditional pollsters repeatedly labeled the race as “too close to call,” markets had already identified Trump as the favored candidate. For prediction markets, which had been criticized in the run-up to the election, this result was particularly satisfying. Critics had alleged that pro-Trump organizations were using crypto-based sites like Polymarket to boost his chances. “None of the hysterical claims about how markets would damage democracy or other woes came to pass,” Strumpf said, dismissing these worries.

Polymarket projected Trump a 98.8% chance of winning in the days before the election, which was a sharp increase from roughly 60% the day before. Even mainstream publications like the New York Times, which had not traditionally favored Trump, suggested that he had a higher than 95% chance of winning as the evening wore on and the vote count went on. The market’s prediction that Trump would receive 306 electoral votes—much more than the 270 required for victory—was validated by the paper’s real-time estimates.

While acknowledging the ongoing role of polls and other forecasting methods, experts emphasized that prediction markets contributed additional value to the overall forecasting landscape. Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly and a Polymarket investor, explained, “Markets were probably adding in some alpha into the raw forecasts that were missing.” Aaron Brogan, a lawyer who studies prediction markets, cautioned that it is still too early to make sweeping conclusions from a single race, noting that this result could be influenced by traditional polling errors.

Despite this, prediction market participants were elated by the outcome. Hart Lambur, co-founder of UMA Protocol, which works with Polymarket, declared, “Prediction markets work.” He continued, “Polymarket literally predicted Trump’s victory when traditional polls said the race was a toss-up.” This victory marks a significant moment for the legitimacy and value of prediction markets, which were shown to provide more reliable insights than traditional polling methods.