Prediction Market Investigates Suspicious Trades Around Likud's Election Win

The international prediction market platform Polymarket has launched an investigation into a series of unusually profitable trades made around the recent Israeli Knesset elections. According to a report by Bloomberg, a surge of bets from hundreds of new accounts occurred shortly before polls closed on election day. These bets accurately predicted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would retain his position and that the Likud party would secure the highest number of mandates.

As soon as television exit polls were released, showing a stronger performance for Likud than initially anticipated, some traders immediately cashed out over $100,000 in profits. Significant additional earnings remain in various digital wallets, yet to be withdrawn. Polymarket's investigation team is examining dozens of wallets that became active specifically around the election.

Simultaneously, intelligence and analysis firms, Polysight and BubbleMaps, have flagged the trading pattern as suspicious and initiated their own independent probes. A representative from BubbleMaps told Reuters that 101 accounts on the platform were funded for the first time on election day, before polls closed, and some quickly realized profits upon the release of the exit polls.

The investigation occurs amid growing global regulatory scrutiny of political betting platforms due to concerns about insider trading. This issue has also gained attention following a surge in activity on the Kalshi platform. However, Bloomberg noted that it remains difficult to definitively determine whether these trades involved insider information or were the result of successful independent analysis of voting trends.