Nobel Peace Prize bets on Polymarket under scrutiny: Report

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 investigating 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 showed 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 received the peace prize for promoting democracy in Venezuela through her work as a human rights activist. In 2024, she praised Bitcoin (BTC) as “a lifeline” during hyperinflation in the country, as some residents used it “to protect their wealth and to finance their escape.”

Related: MetaMask to let users bet on politics, sports via Polymarket

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), invested $2 billion in Polymarket ahead of a reported US launch.

Targeted in the media and by US regulators

Prediction markets recently came under attack by the animated series South Park, which poked fun at platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi as well as the US regulators responsible for overseeing them. Perhaps unironically, some of the predictions made on the show ended up being listed on Polymarket.