Wall Street Journal: Why this Polymarket whale dared to bet $30 million on Trump

The mysterious trader dubbed the "Trump Whale" is set to pocket nearly $50 million in profits after making a series of bold bets tied to the presidential election.

Not only did he think Donald Trump would win the presidential election, he was betting that Trump would win the popular vote — an outcome many political observers considered unlikely. The trader, who calls himself “Théo,” also bet on Trump to win “blue wall” swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Now, Théo is about to reap a huge payoff. He used four anonymous accounts to place bets on the cryptocurrency betting platform Polymarket. Although he refuses to reveal his identity, he has been in contact with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal since an article on Oct. 18 drew attention to his bets.

In dozens of emails, Théo said his bet was essentially a wager on the accuracy of polling data. He described himself as a wealthy Frenchman who worked as a trader at various banks and told the Wall Street Journal that he began applying his math knowledge to analyze U.S. polls this summer.

He believes the polls overstate Vice President Harris's support, and unlike most armchair political commentators, he puts his money where his mouth is, betting more than $30 million on a Trump win.

Théo was in a cheerful mood as the election results rolled in on Tuesday night. He said he woke up in the middle of the night in France to check the results.

Trump, whose strong showing in Florida bodes well for his popular vote victory, wrote: "I feel very happy and confident in my bet!"

In a private message to a reporter before Election Day, Téo predicted that Trump would get 49% or 50% of the vote nationwide, defeating Harris. He also predicted that Trump would win six of the seven battleground states .

As of Wednesday afternoon, analysts were predicting Trump would win the popular vote, with nearly 72 million votes to Harris’ 67.1 million, though millions of votes in California and other states had yet to be counted. Betting markets see Trump winning the popular vote as a near certainty.

Betting markets show Trump is also on track to win all seven swing states. On Wednesday, Michigan, which Théo thinks Harris could win, was projected as a Trump win.

The Wall Street Journal has confirmed that Théo was the trader behind the Polymarket accounts that systematically bought bets on Trump winning. Polymarket confirmed some of his claims, saying the person behind the bets was a Frenchman with extensive trading experience and a background in financial services.

Théo said he bet his own money on Trump in order to make a lot of money and that he had “absolutely no political agenda.” The Journal could not determine whether those claims were true. The Journal could not rule out any links between Théo and any political organizations or Trump allies.

In his emails and Zoom conversations with reporters, Théo has repeatedly criticized U.S. polls. He has been particularly critical of polls conducted by the mainstream media, which, in his view, are skewed toward the Democratic Party and tend to produce anomalous polling results that favor Harris.

"In France, it's different!! The credibility of the polls is more important: they want the results to be as close to reality as possible. The culture is different in this regard," he wrote.

Théo shared a table of numbers compiled from RealClearPolitics polling averages that showed Trump outperforming in swing state polls in 2020. Given how close the 2024 swing state polls are, Théo reasoned that if Trump had a similarly strong performance, he would easily take the lead.

Théo said the polls failed to account for the "shy Trump voter effect." Either Trump supporters are reluctant to tell pollsters they support the former president, or they don't want to participate in the polls, Théo wrote.

To address this problem, Théo argues that pollsters should use so-called neighborhood polls, which ask respondents which candidate they expect their neighbors to support. The idea is that people may not want to reveal their preferences, but they will indirectly reveal their preferences when asked to guess who their neighbors plan to vote for.

Théo cited several polls released in September that used both neighborhood and traditional voting methods and found Harris's support was several percentage points lower when respondents were asked who their neighbors would vote for than when they were asked directly which candidate they supported.

To Théo, it was proof that pollsters had once again underestimated Trump’s support. The data helped him place a bet that Trump would win the popular vote. At the time Théo placed his bet, bettors on Polymarket gave Trump less than a 40 percent chance of winning the popular vote.

As Théo celebrated the results on election night, he revealed another part of his analysis that led to his winning bet. In an email, he told The Wall Street Journal that he had commissioned a survey from a large pollster, which he declined to name, to measure the neighborhood effect . The results, he wrote, were “shocking, in favor of Trump!”

Théo declined to share the findings, saying his agreement with the pollsters required him to keep them confidential. But he argued that U.S. pollsters should use the neighbor method in future surveys to avoid another embarrassing blunder.

“If the latest polls measured the neighborhood effect, public opinion would be much clearer,” Théo said.