Written by: Haseeb
Compiled by: TechFlow
As the dust settled from the election, there was a story that the Wall Street Journal and New York Times did not report. While mainstream media was busy with the spectacle on television and hesitantly predicting the results of key swing states, the world's largest prediction market, Polymarket, had already made a judgment before midnight Eastern Time, stating the probability of Trump's victory at 97%. This was even before the media announced the results of any swing state.
1. Throughout the election, Polymarket has always been one step ahead.
I want to explain why this is the case, as feedback I received on Twitter last night indicates that most people have a deep misunderstanding about it.
Polymarket does two fundamental things better than the media.
First, Polymarket's predictions before the election were more accurate. Let's look at polling agencies and analysts. Election models based on polls claimed the race was a toss-up, while Polymarket gave Trump a clear advantage—before the election started, his winning odds were set at about 62%.
If you remember, mainstream media ridiculed Polymarket's dissenting opinions. They thought Polymarket should align with the views of those model makers! Obviously, this difference meant that Polymarket was not trustworthy. They believed the different pricing of Polymarket was due to its user base containing many pro-Trump cryptocurrency enthusiasts. It was invested by Peter Thiel, and only foreigners traded on it. Due to being unregulated, they assumed it must be manipulated, with big money pushing up Trump's price. Such criticisms abound.
This criticism implies a profound distrust of the market. It's as if the market cannot be trusted unless there is clear evidence of its reliability. Of course, if you really trust the market, you might no longer trust the media. And the media's business model is built on making you distrust other sources of information—otherwise, why would you keep clicking on their endless clickbait articles?
But anyone with market experience knows: the composition of the market doesn't matter, whether it's Republicans, Democrats, foreigners, or others. In fact, we know that JP Morgan used Polymarket, and some of the largest hedge funds in the world are using it (most having non-U.S. subsidiaries). It is integrated into Bloomberg Terminal and cited on CNN. However, when the media talks about Polymarket, it treats it as if it were just a platform similar to 4chan.
You need to know that Polymarket had a trading volume of $3.6 billion in the presidential election. This is the largest election betting market in history, with a trading volume an order of magnitude higher than any other election market. In comparison, this is far more significant than the career prospects of any single prediction model maker. The market is effective because too many interests depend on the correct answer.
Those so-called biases—such as cryptocurrency enthusiasts or non-Americans supporting Trump—didn't affect the accuracy of the market. (In hindsight, non-Americans may have been more rational in predicting election outcomes.)
But the identity of the participants does not matter. Prediction markets aggregate information from many different participants, arriving at prices that transcend biases. The market does not care about ideology; it only cares whether the results are correct.
The fact is, Polymarket is more accurate than any polling agency or model maker.
Now, I want to make it clear: the difference between 60/40 and 50/50 sounds significant, but it is not. The election itself is full of uncertainty. According to high school statistics, if you want to determine whether a coin is biased towards 60/40 rather than 50/50, you need to flip it more than 100 times to have a 90% certainty. The result of 'Trump winning this election' does not indicate whether the coin is 60/40 or 50/50.
My point is not that Polymarket is completely correct, while prediction models are completely wrong. In fact, the differences between them are not significant. I want to emphasize that the market has consistently set Trump's winning odds higher than polling results. It is important to know that the market understands the conclusions of polls and analysts. The market integrates all existing information, but the pricing of Polymarket differs from polling agencies. The only explanation analysts can think of is that Polymarket has biases.
They lack the humility to consider that perhaps Polymarket may have captured some information that the polls failed to gather.
The accuracy of polls has declined significantly. This is now very clear. Before the internet became popular, the accuracy of polls was much higher. Back then, the response rate for polls conducted via landlines often exceeded 60%. Now, this rate is only about 5%. This means polling agencies face huge sampling biases, which cannot be corrected by simple statistical adjustments. (Moreover, polling agencies—as sellers of products and needing to maintain their reputation—often converge their predictions to avoid being outliers, affecting the overall polling results.)
Moreover, Trump is a unique and divisive figure in American politics. Therefore, in three consecutive elections, we have seen polls seriously underestimate support for him, which is known as the 'shy Trump voter' effect.
Polymarket may believe that the polls missed some important information. Polling agencies, on the other hand, claim that they have updated their models and made adjustments. Polymarket's response is: I don't believe it. And it turns out, Polymarket was right.
Let me emphasize again! Polymarket does not assert that Trump has a 90% chance of winning. 62% is not an absolute figure, as the election itself is filled with uncertainty. What confuses me is that the media showed no curiosity about this discrepancy. Perhaps Polymarket knows something we don't? Or are there pieces of information we've overlooked that are not reflected in the polls?
It is important to remember that Trump's performance nationwide exceeded polling expectations, whether in Republican or Democratic states. He won every swing state and even won the popular vote, which seems unbelievable to most people.
Do you really have confidence that there is no other way to discover the true feelings of tens of millions of Americans without relying on those traditional polling agencies and outdated internet surveys?
This is what the market teaches us. The market is smart, but it doesn't explain the reasons—it only shows the results.
2. This leads to the second way Polymarket surpasses the media.
Polymarket predicted election results in real-time before the media. On election night, the unpredictability of the market was fully manifested. Polymarket reacted quickly and vigorously before the results of any swing state were announced. According to Polymarket's judgment, the election had already been settled by midnight, while mainstream media dragged until 6 AM the next morning to officially announce the results. Why is that?
First, Polymarket identified an important correlation that mainstream media were unwilling to explain to their audience. Polling errors are rarely random; they often correlate across states. So when traders see Trump significantly outperforming polling expectations in some non-competitive states, like New York City (a typical Democratic state) or Florida (a typical Republican state), it means the national polling errors could be significant.
Polymarket quickly captured this, realizing that swing states were no longer competitive. By 11:30 PM, Polymarket had set Trump's odds of winning in Pennsylvania at 90%, while only a small portion of Pennsylvania's votes had been counted.
Prediction markets do not wait for bureaucratic procedures or commentators' analyses. They do not care whether they break the traditional rituals of waiting for vote counts. Remember the outrage of viewers when Fox News prematurely announced the Arizona results in 2020 (which ultimately proved correct)? Trump even threatened to boycott the channel. This reinforced a lesson—major media must honestly count votes and not be too clever for their own good.
However, the market does not care about the dramatic process; it only cares about results. Clearly, explaining to CNN's audience that the election is over, that the polling errors in non-competitive states are too large, and that Kamala's prospects are grim, is a very difficult task. This contradicts the narrative the media has been reinforcing for months. What the public needs is a simple, understandable story, where everyone is clear about the story's development—you need to wait for the results of the swing states until a certain color bar crosses the threshold of 270 votes.
At 12:51 AM, the New York Times was still showcasing dramatic charts and headlines. At this time, Polymarket had already set Trump's odds of winning at 98%.
Therefore, election watchers waited all night just for the media to complete its meaningless coloring bar ritual.
Polymarket traders are not bound by narratives and have no dramatic motives for ratings—they just give judgments directly.
@shayne_coplan, the founder of Polymarket, stated that Trump's campaign team is paying attention to Polymarket to better understand how to interpret the odds. The media even dared to complain that Trump announced victory when the vote count reached 267—at that time, Polymarket's odds had already dropped to show 100%.
The charm of the market lies in its ability to respond quickly to new information. The traders who can integrate information the fastest will be rewarded—profits. This is something traditional media cannot do, as they need to process events through layers of explanations, narrative building, and internal politics (like Murdoch's interference in the Arizona results in 2020).
Polymarket's decentralized nature bypasses all these bureaucratic hurdles, allowing information to flow freely and undisturbed.
Last night's events deserve reflection. This election was a strong warning to the Democrats, a denial of the expert class, and an immune response to the arrogant media.
However, for Polymarket, this night perfectly validated its value. For me, the lesson learned is: when important events happen in the world, it may be better to skip those column articles and directly check Polymarket's odds. Just to clarify: I am an investor in Polymarket. I have always been passionate about prediction markets, and now their value is finally recognized, which makes me very pleased. Additionally, since I am now very tired, I may have made some mistakes in details, but you should understand my point.
This article is written for some people I know who are skeptical about prediction markets and believe the media's denials of Polymarket. If you know anyone who has doubts about prediction markets, feel free to forward this article to them.