Zohran Mamdani’s victory over Andrew Cuomo to become New York City’s 111th mayor generated record voter turnout and $424 million in betting volume on Polymarket, leaving one trader suffering huge losses after betting against him.
A bettor by the name ‘fuxfux007’ has lost $969,169 after betting against Mamdani. The trader appears to be new to Polymarket, according to Polymarket Analytics, with only two bets: one against Mamdani worth $973,757 and another for him worth $42,973.
On the other hand, the biggest winner of the night was a trader known as “demoted” who pocketed $188,487 betting on Mamdani.
In the end, Polymarket correctly predicted the outcome of the election, aligning with the polls. Still, it was not without controversy: billionaire Bill Ackman claimed that prediction markets were being manipulated with malicious orders to make it appear that Mamdami’s chances were greater than expected.
Those claims echo last year’s U.S. election debate, when mainstream media accused Polymarket of manipulation after a French trader’s multimillion-dollar bets inflated Donald Trump’s odds.
At the time, experts told CoinDesk that attempts to manipulate prices were short-lived and mostly self-correcting, as bad prices are quickly eliminated by arbitrage and liquidity from professional firms.
Traders took the same position in the run-up to the New York election, with some pointing out that a bet on Mamdani in the days before polls opened was effectively a guaranteed bond with 5% interest.
