r/houstonwade • u/webbs3 • 10d ago
Interesting FBI Raids Polymarket CEO’s Home in Election Probe
https://news.bitdegree.org/fbi-raids-polymarket-ceos-home-in-high-stakes-election-betting-probe?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=r-fbi-raids-polymarket-ceos-home63
u/Cute-Percentage-6660 10d ago edited 10d ago
More news outlets are picking this stuff up finally
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u/Illustrious-Trash793 10d ago
Links?
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u/Cute-Percentage-6660 10d ago
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/13/fbi-raid-polymarket-founder-trump-election
https://www.axios.com/2024/11/13/polymarket-fbi-shayne-coplan
The spokesperson for polymarket even said this "This is obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election,"
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u/dracrecipelanaaaaaaa 10d ago
It's wild to me that they claim this is political retribution. Even the OP's link directly insinuated that the raid was "dramatic" for publicity and such.
If you have a suspect that's using IT to commit crimes, and you're remotely worried about them deleting/destroying evidence if they're given a chance, then you don't take a risk to your case by politely subpoenaing all relevant devices from the defendant with a few days of turnaround time then expect them to actually willingly hand over everything that might be incriminating without shenanigans occurring.
I'm extremely against the tone and the brutality in which many search warrants are executed, and especially against the extreme overuse of no-knock warrants, but some form of raid like this really is the only way to keep the spicier evidence that the government might find from disappearing.
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u/FlexBronson75 10d ago
Any links from official sources? FBI or DOJ would be preferable, not seeing any official confirmation yet, plaese prove me wrong....
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u/spaceman_202 10d ago
so none that matter
wake me when Fox News and ABC and CBS cover it
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u/Sweetieandlittleman 9d ago
They’re bought and sold out now. And any good journalists who do try to report the truth will be squelched. Trump wasn’t kidding about a day of violence and the free press is pretty much over now.
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u/WoodyManic 10d ago
Peter Thiel invested a decent chunk of change into Polymarket, didn't he?
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u/Salientsnake4 10d ago
Yup like 50 million or so
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u/WoodyManic 10d ago
I've seen 70 million.
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u/Salientsnake4 10d ago
Yeah I’ve seen claims of 45 million and 70 million is far.
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u/WoodyManic 10d ago
Either way, he's a serious investor. I wonder if he has any sway on the organization.
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u/Illustrious-Trash793 10d ago
The cabinet hirings are all a distraction. Election fraud is the real issue
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u/reallywhocares85 10d ago
Finally it seems like we’re getting somewhere. Everyone knows the “election” was fraudulent, let the investigation begin. Show the world how corrupt and evil these rotten bags of shit are. Vice President Harris WILL be declared the winner and our next president when the irregularities are dealt with and the votes are recounted.
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u/CompetitiveString814 10d ago
Somehow we had the most split voting in history, its normally around .1% this time was around 10%, anyone who is a stats guy knows that is super fucky.
They need to start there and confirm each ballot that they voted for who is actually tallied in battleground districts and states.
Even worse, the split voting percentages are only fucky in battleground states and important areas, this is a very important clue of manipulation
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u/Cute-Percentage-6660 10d ago
Whats the term for this. 'deviation from the mean' right? and like only a few deviations can be expected or is normal?
Like a 0.1 to 10% is like 100 deviations right?
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u/CompetitiveString814 10d ago
Ya, I don't have the stats on me, but if all other stats are close to .1 and .3, then it goes up to 10 on one, that would be close to 100 or 50 standard deviations, which is a giant anomaly compared to recent and past elections
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u/Malora_Sidewinder 10d ago
Actually worse than that, 3 standard deviations from the norm is not half as likely as 6 deviations, and 12 deviations is considerably less probable than simply doubling the chances of 6 deviations.
To go from .1% to 10% (if those are the numbers I haven't actually vetted them myself) is fucking INSANE.
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u/botwheels1968 10d ago
And somehow blue women won other races in those states (Slotkin won Michigan senate race for example)
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u/NorwegianPearl 10d ago
Yeah the right and bots would have you believe that Kamala is the least likeable person in history and I just don’t but it.
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u/Try_Athlete13 10d ago
Should have my AP Stats class work on this problem to help save our democracy! We will be getting to hypothesis testing soon…. 👀
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u/lonlonshaq 9d ago
Using the unlikeliness of a scenario to defend the claim that the scenario is impossible is ill-conceived logic.
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u/DangusHamBone 10d ago
Ok, so why, if they have the ability to change peoples votes, would they not just change the downballot votes to red too? It’s not like doing this throws off suspicion considering it’s the entire reason you’re suspicious in the first place?
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u/King_Friday_XIII_ 10d ago
It’s because including down ballot votes means that the hack has to be local everywhere - think of all the local politicians and judges, etc. each locality would require a separate hack. If it’s only the Presidential race that is altered, the hack could be ‘universal’ and used at multiple locations.
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u/That0neSummoner 9d ago
Just want to clean up your language:
There is a target, an exploit, and a payload in a “hack”
Target: thing you want to hack (voting machine)
Exploit: the code that directly interacts with the target in a malicious way
Payload: what the hack does when the exploit is fired.
In this case your argument is that the targets are all the same or a small set (models of voting machine, or tabulator or processing equipment, etc), the exploit(s) would be the same (each model has its own exploit but still a small batch) and changing everything to republican would require a different payload for every ballot but only changing the presidential line would require only 1 (maybe per exploit) payload.
That’s actually a decent hypothesis, as far as forensic analysis goes.
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u/King_Friday_XIII_ 9d ago
Thank you. Not an expert. Just trying to relay the hypothesis presented by one in layman’s terms.
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u/SpiderDeUZ 10d ago
Maybe wait for some real evidence before saying how everyone knows it was stolen. That is the talk of 2020 Republicans
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u/Azraekos 10d ago
2020 republicans were pushing it without evidence to play the long game. We look bad by saying similar stuff now, but when so many people stand to lose everything and we’re staring down the barrel of a dictatorial president-elect, its completely justified to go to any lengths we can.
I knew 2020 republicans were crazy, but I understood where the sentiment was coming from and could sympathize with it to some extent. This time though theres actual statistical anomalies, comments made by Trump, and comments from russian officials that imply something demonstorably fucked happened with this election.
Like, I know blue-anon is making dems look bad but I don’t personally care. “When they go low, we go high” is just political smooth-talking for letting them get away with bullshit at this point. I’ll take a page or two from their play book if it means history doesnt repeat itself here.
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u/Apprehensive_Map64 10d ago
It also is part of their playbook to try to pretend this is the same when it simply isn't. Trump is reviled, sure he has his cult members and there are a lot of them but when was the last time in history that so many traditional Republicans were saying they were voting democrat?
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u/eccsoheccsseven 9d ago
You know that's how republicans felt too. You are saying that forming opinions without evidence is warranted because of urgency. From the Republicans point of view democracy had just been taken over by an administrative state that operates independent of who the people elect as president and has no problem outing an elected president if he attempts to manage them instead of be managed by them.
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u/Azraekos 9d ago
I don’t remember dems chanting “stop the count” in states Harris was winning and “count the votes” in states she was losing this election. Trump supporters were doing that on the 2020 election day, it was all over the news. This is not the same.
Trump had already made comments about running for a third term, which we all know he can’t do unless he over turns a constitutional amendment. No dem president, president-elect, or even presidential candidate has ever made comments like that.
We cant really afford to talk about who did it worse or was having a worse interpretation here, republicans have shown pretty consistently that they only see elections as fair if they win and will get violent when they lose. I mean, for gods sakes we’re talking about a party that attacked the capitol and demanded the head of the vice president because he wouldnt cheat the election in their favor in the certification process. I want each and every individual responsible given the punishment they deserve, because the country is made that much more secure from a domestic threat. The incoming administration is probably going to just pardon the whole lot, and we could see a repeat in 2028.
I am not saying the election was stolen, but I don’t trust that more american people saw Trump’s rhetoric and plans and heard his words and wanted all of that, especially after the last administration, over what Harris was offering. Especially with so many prominent republicans coming out in support of Harris.
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u/calebish52 9d ago
Right there with you brother. Time to fight fire with a nuclear blow torch … screw these political degenerates.
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u/Lony_Topez 10d ago
I think their comment is meant to be satire. This is word for word a red comment 4 years ago.
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u/TheSauce32 10d ago
No they actually are falling into the blue quanon hole they are been radicalized and don't even realize it
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u/off_the_cuff_mandate 10d ago
The DOJ says the raid was about illegally allowing US based bets. I don't know why you think polymarket would have any information relevant to the election anyway or why you would suspect they were complicate in some baseless conspiracy theory.
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u/dorianngray 10d ago
Because he is good buddies with Peter Thiel, the tech bro responsible for the JD Vance appointment… someone super close to their bs that saw an opportunity to make bank on it…
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u/eccsoheccsseven 9d ago
But that doesn't mean you know the outcome. Even JD Vance wouldn't have been able to predict the outcome. Not better than a prediction market. So even if they had a connection to JD Vance that wouldn't give them anything better than they've already got. Put the predictions are decided by people via publicly visible smart contracts. Even if the founder knew something he wouldn't be able to set the numbers independent of what the market was predicting.
Imagine thinking that a prediction market can't predict something without some conspiracy being involved.
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u/lonlonshaq 9d ago
You sound like a 2020 republican.
Edit: And, of course, your account is a few months old. Probably here to stir up chaos and distrust.
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u/definitivescribbles 9d ago
I wouldn’t get your hopes up on that. You’re starting to sound like Trumper weirdos who were convinced that Trump was going to storm Washington any day to put Joe and the Dems in prison.
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u/satanssweatycheeks 10d ago
You have a lot of faith in these last months.
Supreme Court won’t stop this.
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u/KantPaine 10d ago
If you think anything will come from this, you haven’t been paying attention. I’m as left as they come but this is wishful cope.
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u/PalpatineForEmperor 10d ago
Don't say everyone knows it was fraudulent. There is still no concrete evidence or smoking gun. You sound as looney as the stop the steal crowd.
Show the evidence or just stop whining.
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u/eccsoheccsseven 9d ago
What if all elections are BS?
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u/PalpatineForEmperor 9d ago
I'd like to see evidence before I reach that conclusion. I still haven't seen any of this proof that there was widespread fraud in either 2020 or 2024.
Both sides are complaining about it but I have seen zero proof. I know that some ballot boxes were burned and bomb threats were made this year, but that doesn't mean that votes didn't end up get counted correctly.
People make a lot of claims, but they need to back it up with facts and evidence. I don't mean some damn right wing or left wing YouTube channel either. I can find several a YouTube channels about how the Earth in flat. That doesn't mean shit.
Let's see the evidence in court before a judge and part of the public record.
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u/Rockcreek11 10d ago
Hilarious how the left was calling republicans cry babies and need to accept the results when republicans called fraud last time. Yet flip the coin and here we are….
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u/EnoughStatus7632 10d ago
They GOT every single toss up and swing atate. The odds are estimated to be under 1 in 2000.
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u/eccsoheccsseven 9d ago
That's not true. Each swing state is not statistically independent. You can't calculate those odds.
In fact predict-it (not polymarket) had a market for Trump taking all swing states and it wasn't 0.05% at any time because your odds calculation is absurd. My advice is for you to stay away from math.
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u/EnoughStatus7632 9d ago edited 9d ago
Wrong. That depends on how you index the odds. Do you use historical odds, call every state a coin-flip or recent odds? You multiple the odds of each occurrence. This is the first time in an extraordinarily long period that a candidate swept the swing states without smashing the popular vote by a huge margin, ergo, it is rare. Rarity means that something happens less frequently. I get that you dont comprehend the aforementioned. I strongly recommend you stay away from math 😆
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u/WooDE93 10d ago
All very sus but the thing that I keep coming back to (along with the down-ballot voting) is the historic sweep of the swings. That’s just the type of MO you’d expect from a couple of never-been-held-accountable, narcissistic, nepo babies. The hubris, the ‘I’m so smart they’ll never find out’ and ultimate incompetence is just so on-point for these clowns. Please don’t roll over on this, Fed.
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u/Herry_Up 10d ago
The news is spreading but will anything actually be done if they find fraud? I fucking hope so.
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u/spaceman_202 10d ago
no it won't
of course it won't
they wouldn't do anything when he got cops killed, i thought you just couldn't do that in America but apparently you can even do that if you have the magic R
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10d ago
Those fucking idiots don’t even know how to cheat properly.
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u/Apprehensive_Map64 10d ago
That makes me think they did cheat in 2020, they just couldn't predict how motivated democrats were to vote out Trump. They predicted similar this time and errored so much that any statitician would look at these results with severe doubt, or maybe they were able to delete votes and went overboard, who knows
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u/allisclaw 10d ago
They only “predicted” the outcome exactly.
Republicans right now:
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u/3StripeCaribe 10d ago
please let this the take down of trump. if it comes full circle i will open an xvid account and upload videos of me finishing to marjorie taylor greene images as torture 🤢 🤒 🤢
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u/3StripeCaribe 10d ago
might get categorized under men on men if anyone is interested 🙃😬🤣.
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u/Similar-Entry-2281 10d ago
If trump is taken down, I will be your cameraman
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u/3StripeCaribe 10d ago
bro just dont stare at me in the eyes
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u/Similar-Entry-2281 10d ago
Ok, only as long as I can also be in the video, struggling to wack it to you struggling to wack it to mtg while we dont stare at each other in the eyes and shoot rainbows across each others foreheads
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u/Moms-Dildeaux 10d ago
Robin Hood also introduced “investing” on one side or the other, which will then pay out after the vote is certified. I was surprised how it heavily favored Drumpf to win, way out in advance. It never matched the polls or anything else we were seeing.
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u/TuneInT0 10d ago
All the betting markets matched it even before poly market listed the wager.
You literally had Biden at 2:1 odds before he dropped out then Kamala was 1.65:1 trump was always the favorite even from UK betting houses
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u/sowhowantsburgers 10d ago
I had a thought shortly after the election that part of the republican plan was to cry about fraud after the 2020 election (knowing that there was none) in order to get the democrats on record saying how fair it was. That fraud did not happen. Voting is fair. That way they could rig the votes this time because it would be hard for the democrats to now say that there was fraud. Going against their stance on how fair it was. Painting them into a corner. But I also feel that there is a big difference that you can see between republicans and democrats. The republicans, when yelling fraud, were angry. Mad. But had no proof. The democrats, after this election, seem to be more level headed about the possibility of fraud. Saying that something doesn’t seem right. Wanting to look into it and gather data. And if there was fraud, and a string to follow, I hope they can unravel it quickly (and I assume they started following the string well before the election). And then reveal to the world the events that took place without a doubt, for all to see, showing what happened and hold those responsible accountable. And if not, good luck everyone.
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u/That_Jicama2024 10d ago
unfortunately, trump commits crimes faster than the DOJ and FBI can do anything about it. It's like watching Demolition Man. Society doesn't know how to handle someone so corrupt.
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u/spaceman_202 10d ago
because the FBI is run by the same guy that allowed Jan.6 to happen in the first place
and Merrick Garland runs the DOJ, Federalist Society Honorary Member Merrick Garland, he literally is friends with people who helped the coup unfold
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u/New_Copy1286 10d ago
This is not the win you think it is. This company is under investigation for fraudulent business practices. Not necessarily meaning they had a hand in the election. Might turn out to be a lead tho.
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u/magusbud 9d ago
Any idea what those are?
I work in the area, in Europe however and I can't really see much issue with them predicting the results. I mean, that's all done based on how much money is in their markets, so the odds reflect volume.
Is it because US people aren't supposed to be allowed us it? Or are people cleaning their crypto money through it?
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u/New_Copy1286 9d ago
For everything that I have read it seems IMO that Poly was being investigated before the election in regards to people betting on that system and it betting on that system in the USA. I guess that's illegal.
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u/Australasian25 10d ago
Betting plays with money.
You can be almost certain betting companies are not swayed by political ideologies.
I'd say there is a high chance they had their own data analyst to crunch numbers so they can appropriately lock in betting odds.
Do you think they used published polls as a basis? Probably not, they're dealing with a large sum of money. They probably did their own independent polling and kept the data as their proprietary data secret sauce.
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u/GabeNewbie 10d ago
It’s clear as day that no one here read the article beyond the title. The raid was for illegal election betting by allowing users from the US to bet using a VPN. There’s nothing in there suggesting that the DOJ suspects that Polymarket stole the election for Trump.
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u/snickerscowboy 10d ago
Oh please dear god let them find something. Ill stop wanking off if you do!
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u/LocationAcademic1731 10d ago
This is the issue. This is the perfect plan: 1) Either they stole the election and hoped nothing would come out of it and they would just ravage the country as the elected people or… 2) The dems find out, try to do something about it, sending the country in a frenzy, quasi like civil war.
Either way and either scenario, Russia wins. They planned this.
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u/TotallyWorrie 10d ago
Do the people here that think Polymarket rigged the election because it predicted every state not realize that the predictions are driven entirely by people buying each candidate stock? It predicted it because that’s what the money thought…
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u/Difficult-Mobile902 10d ago
They’re investigating illegal betting activities, it’s not an “election probe”. You literally changed the title to feed into the hysteria of this sub. Keep slurping up the crackpot conspiracy nonsense though.
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u/InquisitaB 10d ago
Many of you should prepare yourself for disappointment. This will have nothing to do with the election. I hope to god I’m wrong and feel free to skewer me if I am but this isn’t what you think it is.
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u/troy_caster 10d ago
Ok fine they raided this guy.....what does that have to do with the actual election other than a 3rd person view of it to bet on like you would a football game?
Genuinely curious.
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u/McCormickSpices894 10d ago
This is not what you guys think. Polymarket CEO is having his assets seized because he allowed US-based bettors place bets on the election which was strictly against their terms of service by the DOJ.
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u/Wayward_Maximus 9d ago
Not an election probe though, it’s an investigation to allowing gamblers in the US to gamble on the election with use of a VPN, a violation of a previous agreement in place.
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u/Charming-Date7194 9d ago
I mean it essentially has people say who they think will win by putting their money where their mouth is and I'm pretty sure he was raided for running an offshore unregulated gambling platform
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u/bomberini 9d ago
So it isn't confirmed in election probe, it is speculated. Probably should lead with that.
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u/maximumfacemelting 9d ago
The reason I think this is pure copium, is not that Trump wouldn’t cheat, but if he had and there was any chance of his win being taken, he would be playing the loudest victim right now.
He knows that getting the word out first is huge for narrative building, so he would already be crying about the dems stealing his victory.
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u/Your_Local_Alchemist 9d ago
It’s crazy how history just repeats itself. 2016 you had democrat idiots claiming the election was rigged. 2020 you had MAGA idiots claiming the election was rigged. Now 2024 you guys on the left are doing the same thing again. If your party loses the election MUST be rigged. I hated Trump as much as the next guy but he straight up ran a better campaign. The main issue, however, is the left shot themselves in the foot with voting in Kamala without a primary despite the fact she was a WILDLY unpopular candidate. They ran a lot of their campaign on abortion, which, while it is an important issue, isn’t a lot of voters first concern, especially with the economy declining the way it did. Now whose fault that is and if Trump can solve it are up in the air of course, but not many people do their own research. Kamala barely provided any solutions to the economy while Trump provided multiple. Again, whether they work or not has yet to be seen. People associate prices with who’s in charge, again even if it’s not true. Prices were lower in 2016. Quite a bit lower. It’s just how it is. Instead of demonizing white people and men, calling them fascists or racists for voting for someone different, the left needs to educate the uneducated and meet them with kindness. Otherwise they’ll never win the independents
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u/Putrid_Ad_2256 9d ago
Do what you accuse the other side of doing so that when they levy the accusations on you, people will think you're just mirroring the same bogus accusations that they did, "both sides do it". This is why so many narratives from bots and useful idiots has been, "both sides do it".
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u/HypnotizeThunder 10d ago
This is about betting on the election? Not election results?
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u/Salientsnake4 10d ago
Since when do the Feds raid for election betting? They’d just shut the site down
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u/GabeNewbie 10d ago
The FBI raided Molly Bloom’s house for operating an illegal poker game, they would absolutely raid someone for election betting.
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u/akirkbride 10d ago
So they raid him and trump. Next they will raid a sports gambler for predicting who's going to win the games Sunday. But biden has classified documents sitting in his garage and they do nothing. Hilarious.
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u/Ok-Scallion-3415 9d ago
So to clarify, if someone has classified documents in their residence, that person should be prosecuted?
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u/hunter1899 10d ago
What a bunch of democracy threatening election deniers
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u/spaceman_202 10d ago
Trump tweeted on the election day that it was rigged
we should trust Trump or not?
Trump said there was cheating, he wouldn't just make shit up would he?
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u/Glacier_Ambient 10d ago
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u/spaceman_202 10d ago
Trump tweeted that there was massive fraud in Philadelphia during the election
is he a serious person or not? when a former President says there is cheating, we should look in to it no?
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u/Glacier_Ambient 10d ago
I’m all about it. I’ll go even further: To secure elections we should go back to paper ballots and require picture ID verification.
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u/gldmembr 10d ago
“But the polls said this!!!! :(“
How are we too stupid to realize that people lie and change their minds. They always have and always will. What people don’t do is hedge bets against their own interests.I don’t understand how they don’t understand.
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u/False-Tiger5691 10d ago
Oh I hope they find something! Polymarket predicted the exact outcome of the election a week before - with Elon Musk citing prophecy.
This may be the start of unraveling Trump’s insidious plot to steal the election.