According to The Wall Street Journal, the poll results for the two US presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, are neck and neck. However, the odds in decentralized prediction markets heavily favor Trump, raising concerns of manipulation. However, Tarek Mansour, the founder of the prediction market Kalshi, refutes this by citing data from his own platform.
In the national average of Real Clear Politics, Harris leads Trump by about 1.2 percentage points. On the blockchain-based prediction market Polymarket, users believe that the likelihood of Trump winning has risen to 60% in the past two weeks, while Harris stands at 40%. In early October, the difference between the two was only a few percentage points. The Wall Street Journal reports that four Polymarket accounts have systematically and frequently placed bets on Trump winning the election.
Mansour from Kalshi first rebuts the claim that a few big bettors manipulated the bets to benefit Trump. He cites data from Kalshi, stating that the median bet amount for Harris ($85) is higher than Trump’s ($58), and also mentions that there are more people betting on Trump on the Kalshi platform. This data roughly aligns with the 20-percentage-point difference reflected on Polymarket.
Mansour further points out that Kalshi is a “US-only” prediction market (unlike Polymarket), countering rumors that the prediction market odds are influenced by foreign manipulation. He concludes by asserting that prediction markets are unbiased sources of new truths.
The value of prediction markets and their usefulness compared to traditional polls is currently a subject of controversy. For example, Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes that prediction markets are more accurate than polls due to the involvement of actual money. However, critics point out that the inability of US users to use Polymarket does raise some concerns about the validity of the platform’s results.
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