Investors Gamble On Making Polymarket A Unicorn

Polymarket, the biggest prediction market in the world, is launching a $200 million fundraise to make everything something you can bet on, from UFC fights to Federal Reserve rate decisions.

The Big Gamble: While gambling has historically been reserved for casinos and sports, platforms like Polymarket, Kalshi, Robinhood, and others are, for better or worse, making it easier and more democratized for anyone to set a wager on any matchup or event. That’s already having a profound effect on society, politics, and entertainment.

Behind the Funding: Polymarket, which gained notoriety for giving Donald Trump an almost 100% chance of winning the US election hours before the official results were announced, is eyeing unicorn status.

• Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, an existing investor, is leading the new $200 million funding round, which includes providing $50 million more in financing itself.
• That’s a lot of money for a betting platform, which is typically seen as a controversial gamble in and of itself… but $8 billion in predictions were made on Polymarket last year alone, primarily in the last quarter (i.e., the presidential election).
• And trading volume is 10x higher than this time last year ($1 billion last month, compared to $63 million in May 2024), so it’s clearly a booming business.
• Also, Polymarket has become the official prediction-market partner for X. So, between Polymarket wagers and Elon Musk’s polls, X is going to be a uniquely polarizing insights generator.

Final Wager: Ironically, Americans can’t use Polymarket — the platform was banned from hosting any US-based users after a 2022 settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission when it was charged with running an illegal derivatives market, per Axios. So, if Polymarket wants to return to the US, it’ll need to register with the agency. Considering the current administration’s looser regulatory stance, it’s only a matter of time.

Prediction: The job market is so precarious right now that a record number of Americans may be drawn to the get-rich-quick possibilities of betting platforms… which could drive up the valuations of Polymarket (and all of its competitors) even more.