- Polymarket activity hints at insider leaks in poker event.
- Peacock’s poker broadcast spoiled amid regulatory scrutiny debates.
- Insider trading fears reignite prediction market accountability calls.
The winner of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship was supposed to be a closely guarded secret until its scheduled broadcast on Peacock later this year. But Polymarket appears to have let the cat out of the bag, as first reported by PokerScout.
Spoiler alert: At the time of writing, Floridian Sam Soverel was trading at 90.5% on the prediction platform, down from a one-time high of 99.4%. The massive surge in Soverel’s price – one player from a field of 64 – strongly suggests someone knew something the rest of us didn’t – information that would have been protected by a nondisclosure agreement.
The championship, which was recorded in early August, is making its comeback after a 12-year hiatus, with Peacock planning to air ten episodes starting this fall, which will be repeated on PokerGO.
The Insider Problem
The situation highlights the problem of insider trading on a platform like Polymarket, which unlike its competitor, Kalshi, is not federally regulated. If it were, such an incident might spark an investigation into potential market manipulation, insider trading violations, and compliance failures under the Commodity Exchange Act.
In the state-regulated traditional sports betting markets, operators are generally prohibited from offering bets on events where results are already known to a small group of people. It’s why you don’t get to bet on the Oscars or professional wrestling, because of the possibility of insider manipulation.
On the eve of last Friday’s Nobel Peace Prize announcement, Venezuelan opposition leader and eventual winner María Corina Machado’s odds jumped from 3.6% to 73% in the space of a few hours – again, indicating that someone appeared to be acting with non-public information.
Traders often scour transaction data for telltale signs of insider betting, effectively trying to profit from the same information edge.
No More Secrets
Polymarket does not prohibit insider trading. In fact, George Mason University economist Robin Hanson recently argued that allowing insiders to trade increased the platform’s forecasting powers.
If the point of [prediction] markets is to get accurate information, then you definitely want to allow insiders to trade,” he recently told crypto publication Decrypt.
But try telling that to the poker fans for whom the National Heads-Up Poker Championship has been ruined – or to Peacock, whose viewing figures could be damaged as a result of the leak. It’s a reminder that when it comes to prediction markets, secrets are just another tradable asset.
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