FBI raids apartment of crypto gambling CEO

The Federal Bureau of Investigation confiscated electronics from Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan during an early Wednesday morning raid on his New York City apartment, according to a report by Reuters. Coplan’s company is the world’s largest prediction market, where users place bets on future outcomes. Prediction markets combine news with polling and expert opinion to predict the future with greater accuracy than pundits, according to Polymarket. The platform gained popularity during the 2024 election cycle and remained one of the first and only outlets strongly predicting President-elect Donald Trump would win the Nov. 5 election.

Why was the raid conducted? The FBI launched an investigation into Polymarket after it allowed U.S. citizens to wager on the platform, which the Commodity Futures Trading Commission banned in 2022, Bloomberg reported. The 26-year-old executive described the raid as a final effort by the Biden administration to punish political opponents before leaving office. Incumbent leaders should realize that taking a more supportive stance towards businesses may have changed the election’s outcome, he wrote.

WORLD reached out to Polymarket and the FBI for further comment, but received no replies as of Thursday afternoon.