Data from Polymarket showed one user with a recently opened account made more than $30,000 exclusively through bets on the peace prize winner.
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Norwegian officials have reportedly launched an investigation into prediction platforms’ bets on 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado as potential espionage.
According to a Bloomberg report on Monday, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the entity that assists the Nobel Committee in selecting the peace prize recipient, began reports that bets on the prediction platform Polymarket surged in the hours before the announcement of Machado as the winner.
Officials are reportedly still in the process of investigating whether someone “managed to steal information and made a lot of money from it,” according to the institute’s director, Kristian Berg Harpviken.
Data from Polymarket one user under the name “dirtycup” made more than $30,000 after about $70,000 worth of bets on Machado. Bloomberg reported that three accounts that had mainly placed similar bets profited by about a combined $90,000.
Machado for promoting democracy in Venezuela through her work as a human rights activist. In 2024, she praised Bitcoin () as “a lifeline” during hyperinflation in the country, as some residents used it “to protect their wealth and to finance their escape.”
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Polymarket, which launched in 2020, has become a platform for many crypto users to bet on the outcomes of a variety of issues, from the Nobel Prize to the top-selling musical albums. Last week, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), in Polymarket ahead of a reported US launch.
Prediction markets recently came under attack by the animated series South Park, which like Polymarket and Kalshi as well as the US regulators responsible for overseeing them. Perhaps unironically, some of the predictions on the show ended up being listed on Polymarket.
In September, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for two Polymarket entities. The move allows the platform to offer event contracts without reporting the data typically required under US regulations, without the threat of enforcement.
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said that the CFTC’s action had given Polymarket “the green light to go live in the USA.” Coplan reportedly last week after the ICE investments.
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