Predictions site Polymarket’s fully-fledged return to home U.S. territory has been considerably boosted by a US$2 billion (£1.48bn) investment from the owners of the New York Stock Exchange.
The investment from Intercontinental Exchange, announced earlier this week and confirmed by Polymarket yesterday, values the controversial prediction market site at around US$8 billion (£5.96bn).
And it boosts the site’s intention to return to legal U.S. trading asap, after being sanctioned by the previous Biden administration in 2022.
Founded by CEO Shayne Coplan in 2020, crypto-based Polymarket has been working a number of runarounds in its bid to return to legal U.S. futures trading action.
Trump World
In July this year Polymarket acquired QCEX, a little-known boutique exchange and clearinghouse, which is licensed by the federal regulatory Commodity Futures Trading Commission, for US$112 million (£83.45m).
And a month later the U.S. president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., joined their advisory board and his venture-capital firm 1789 Capital became an investor in the company.
Polymarket–along with fellow prediction markets sites Kalshi and Robinhood–has been at the centre of a storm roiling the world of American gambling since the advent of Trump 2.0 as to what constitutes “betting”.
The prediction sites, growing exponentially in power with their close ties to Trump world, claim they are not gambling but “prediction” sites, where people wager on simple “yes-or-no” outcomes.
Banned in Colombia
They came to front-space prominence during the run-up to the recent presidential elections, when they successfully “predicted” that Donald Trump would win.
But controversy has ramped-up over their seemingly inexorable drive for the riches of sports betting, targeting big ticket events like the Super Bowl, college basketball’s March Madness, NBA play-offs, et al.
The investment deal by Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange, which boasts, perhaps appropriately say political wags, the stock market ticker symbol of ICE, is proof-positive that Polymarket has come back in from the cold.
Meantime, iGaming and sports betting heavy-hitters FanDuel and DraftKings are also making big moves on the prediction markets phenomenon by acquisition or setting up their own verticals.
Polymarket, however, remains banned in several countries as an illicit off-shore gambling platform.
The latest country to vent its displeasure at the prediction site is Colombia, which has just banned Polymarket for offering outcomes on the nation’s upcoming presidential elections.
