FBI agents on Wednesday raided the home of Shayne Coplan, founder and CEO of the election-betting platform Polymarket.
Agents seized Coplan’s phone and electronics at his home in New York City, Polymarket said. The company is under investigation for allegedly allowing U.S.-based users to bet, Bloomberg reported.
Polymarket users can buy and sell shares to predict everything from election results to whether TikTok will be banned. The platform is popular with the cryptocurrency community. It has only been available to people outside the U.S., but Coplan told CNBC after the election that he hoped to expand.
The site gained attention in recent weeks after bettors put Trump’s odds of winning the Nov. 5 presidential election sharply higher than those of Vice President Kamala Harris, despite opinion polls that showed a much closer race. A French trader reportedly won nearly $50 million after predicting Trump would win the popular vote, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Polymarket said the FBI raid was “obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election.”
Coplan had not been arrested or taken into custody, the company told Reuters.
The FBI has declined comment.
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