Polymarket: $600M Traded After Election Outcomes Known
Original: Over $600 Million in Polymarket Election Trades Took Place After Races Ended
Why This Matters
Wash trading on prediction markets undermines claims that they reflect real crowd sentiment.
Over $600M in trades on Polymarket's Ethiopian and Romanian election markets occurred after results were decided, with paired accounts trading back and forth in patterns experts call deliberate volume manipulation.
Two election markets on Polymarket's offshore platform generated over $600 million in combined trading volume — far above typical political markets — with most activity concentrated on long-shot candidates who lost. In Ethiopia's federal election, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's party won 438 parliamentary seats in a landslide, yet just $173,000 was wagered on him winning. Over $41 million traded on his chief of staff, Shimelis Abdisa. Total volume hit $285 million, nearly all on losing candidates. Former Polymarket trader Chris Park, who now runs forensic analysis firm MSR Decode, found that roughly $284 million came from paired accounts repeatedly buying and selling contracts with each other. Trading continued for 123 days after the election's outcome was clear, prompting user complaints in comment sections. Barnard College economics professor Rajiv Sethi calls it a 'zombie market' and says the pattern is 'obviously some form of volume manipulation.' Polymarket's head of global intelligence Shana Bautista told WIRED the team 'immediately flagged this activity, investigated, and blocked the accounts.' Polymarket did not answer follow-up questions about why accounts were allowed to reach such volumes before action was taken. A separate Romania election market showed what Sethi described as 'even more dramatic' anomalies.