Polymarket traders had penciled in a 90% chance that Kennedy would drop out Friday.
After announcing his campaign suspension, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent bettors on Polymarket into a frenzy.
A Polymarket wager on whether Kennedy would cease his presidential campaign by Friday has caused controversy as bettors are not sure whether it is resolved or not.
This particular wager, which has drawn in excess of $300,000, was based on the idea that the market would close positively if he “officially announces his withdrawal” from the highly anticipated November election.
Kennedy Confuses Polymarket Bettors
A 90% probability was estimated by polymarket traders for Kennedy’s withdrawal on Friday, just before his speech in Arizona.
But as he spoke to his followers, the odds plummeted to just 6% following his announcement that he would not give up on his presidential campaign entirely but would pull out of crucial battleground states like Arizona.
“I’m not terminating my campaign, I’m simply suspending it,” he said.
“Our polling repeatedly indicated that if I remained on the ballot in the battleground states, I would probably give the election to the Democrats, with whom I have serious disagreements on the most pressing matters.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drops powerful truth about chronic illness, obesity, the US government and our food supply. He cooked here.
— An0maly (@LegendaryEnergy) August 23, 2024
This must watch video was part of his drop out speech. pic.twitter.com/yQwgnzpvRU
In the meantime, some traders sought clarification from news articles, which contributed to the confusion by presenting contradictory information from well-known media sources.
For instance, one Fox News article that was shared said that Kennedy “dropped his White House bid,” while an article from Reuters said that Kennedy “abandoned his campaign on Friday.”
Notably, this is not the first time Polymarket bettors face controversial outcomes.
The platform dealt with a contentious $680,000 market earlier in the year involving LayerZero’s airdrop. This was resolved by UMA, a DeFi protocol that claims to have a “decentralized truth machine” that uses token-based voting to settle disputes.
The betting odds on Polymarket moved in favor of former President Donald Trump after Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announcement.
Polymarket Under Scrutiny as Trading Volume Surges
A ban on wagering related to the 2024 presidential election was demanded earlier this month by three House members and five US senators.
Prominent individuals including Senators Jeff Merkley, Richard Blumenthal, and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Representatives Jamie Raskin and John Sarbanes, are members of the bipartisan group.
In a letter addressed to Rostin Behnam, Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the lawmakers highlighted the perilous influence these betting markets could exert on the electoral landscape.
The group voiced worries about the potential for billionaires to use big bets to influence election results and undermine public confidence in the democratic process.
“Voting motivations are altered by political bets, which substitute financial calculations for political convictions.”
Polymarket, which debuted in 2020, is a decentralized prediction market platform where users wager with cryptocurrency on the results of actual events.
Users of the platform, which makes use of the USDC stablecoin, can purchase and sell shares in predictions pertaining to the probability of future events.
Polymarket has recently achieved record-breaking trading volumes.
With $343 million in trading volume in July alone, the platform achieved a milestone of $1 billion in monthly trading volume, reflecting the growing interest in the US election.