FBI Seizes Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan’s Phone and Electronics After Platform Predicted Trump Landslide
Coplan: “It’s discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents.”
President Donald Trump’s Federal Bureau of Investigation restructuring cannot come soon enough.
Over the course of the election, many of us followed the presidential election predictions of Polymarket, a decentralized prediction market platform.
Polymarket forecast on October 18th vs the actual results: pic.twitter.com/28C5dcn1SQ
— shaneyyricch (@shaneyyricch) November 7, 2024
Polymarket allows users to bet on the outcomes of various real-world events, including political elections. The platform operates on the Polygon blockchain, utilizing cryptocurrency for each transaction. Users can buy shares representing the probability of specific events occurring, with each share becoming worth $1 if the predicted outcome happens or becoming worthless if it doesn’t.
Apparently, the victory win triggered officials at the FBI. So, the agency conducted an early morning raid on the home of Chief Executive Officer Shayne Coplan.
The 26-year-old entrepreneur was roused from bed in his Soho pad at 6 a.m. by US law enforcement who demanded he turn over his phone and other electronic devices, a source close to the matter told The Post.
It’s “grand political theater at its worst,” the source told The Post. “They could have asked his lawyer for any of these things. Instead, they staged a so-called raid so they can leak it to the media and use it for obvious political reasons.”
Coplan was not provided with a reason for the raid, but the source suspects it was political retribution since Polymarket accurately predicted an easy Trump triumph over Vice President Kamala Harris – as opposed to traditional polls.
The source also speculated that the government is likely piggybacking off liberal media reports that accuse Polymarket of market manipulation and rigging its polls in favor of Trump.
Coplan was not arrested, and the FBI declined to comment or provide an explanation for the raid.
The FBI declined to comment. The Department of Justice and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on the raid. One French bettor earned over $40 million using the platform.
In the run-up to the presidential election, the site gained widespread attention for the way it placed Trump’s odds high above those of Harris, when opinion polls had for months shown the race in a dead heat.
Polymarket, which does not allow trading in the U.S., also gained scrutiny after a mystery French trader, known as the Polymarket whale, made large bets on Trump winning the election.
The trader’s huge wagers came in tandem with a dramatic rise in Trump’s chances on the exchanges.
He walked away with more than $46 million in profit.
Whoa — Polymarket now suddenly predicting a Trump sweep of *every* swing state AND a Republican sweep of Congress pic.twitter.com/jQwzGw31TX
— Adam Taggart (@menlobear) November 6, 2024
I am sure many traditional pollsters, who work in tandem with the mainstream media to massage polls for “Operation Demoralize,” are delighted at this development. Polymarket was not obligated to call anyone anything, and it merely operated according to the algorithm.
Coplan posted a very upbeat response on X.com:
It’s discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents. We are deeply committed to being non-partisan, and today is no different, but the incumbents should do some self-reflecting and recognize that taking a more pro-business, pro-startup approach may be what would have changed their fate this election.
Polymarket has provided value to 10’s of millions of people this election cycle, while causing harm to nobody. We’re deeply proud of that.
I’m also proud to say that the future of America, and in particular American entrepreneurship, has never been brighter.
In the face of adversity, we build.
It’s discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents. We are deeply committed to being non-partisan, and today is no different, but the incumbents should do some self-reflecting…
— Shayne Coplan 🦅 (@shayne_coplan) November 13, 2024
I sure hope Coplan and Polymarket prevail, if everything they have done is legitimate and legal. This move by the FBI is completely on-brand for the Biden-Harris administration.
A representation of the new media and its new pollsters and their relationship to the traditional media and its pollsters. pic.twitter.com/1VcVZrb0kw
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) November 14, 2024
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Comments
I guess Democrats still have a couple months to get some shit like this done…and then it all changes. The media will all of a sudden take an interest in stuff like this happening to THEIR friends (Democrats) and start reporting its politically motivated…like they should be done now! But aren’t!
“so they can leak it to the media and use it for obvious political reasons.”
What political reasons might those be? Sticking your head even farther out of your foxhole when Trump already has crosshairs trained on it?
The raids are out of control. It was a search warrant for electronic devices. Communicate with the subject and his attorney to turn them over. No need to stage early morning ‘raids’ for this sort of thing, this needs to be reserved for persons with a violent history. LEO, DA and the Judiciary have got to make ‘early morning raids’ the very rare exception rather than the rule. The concept of ‘officer safety’ has been stretched totally out of proportion to any realistic threat level in many cases.
This is what Banana Republic’s do.
Agreed and we have far too many folks in a reflexive ‘back the blue’ near Pavlovian response to these raids who won’t push for simple reforms. Instead they seem willing to allow gross violations of 4A, 2A, 1A.
Here’s how it should work; Knock on the door…You got a warrant? Ok what kind? Search warrant, for what address, this one? sure come on in…but don’t give me any BS about ‘officer safety’ that you think overrides my 1A right to call you every name in the book or my 2A right to be armed (especially in my own home) and follow you around to ensure your search warrant is restricted to the ‘particular things’ to be searched as explicitly listed in the warrant. Your wish to ‘feel safe’ should not Trump the Constitution. An arrest warrant is an entirely different situation.
Precisely. The entire point of requiring the officers executing a warrant to have it with them is so that the subject of the warrant can examine it (and possibly even have his attorney examine it, as a citizen has a right to counsel with any contact with LE) for fatal flaws, before the warrant is executed.
“We’re here to execute this warrant.” (Officer provides the homeowner with the warrant.)
“I see. Mmmm. Look here – you’re at the wrong address.”
“Oh. You’re correct. Our apologies. You have a good day.”
This is a much better outcome than shouting “Police!”, giving the homeowner zero seconds to open the door before breaching it, throwing in flash-bangs, and then killing the homeowner because he had armed himself against unknown intruders (anyone can shout “Police!” before ramming your front door open).
Ah, but you could delete stuff if you’re asked nicely. Just like you could flush your 2 kilos of blow if they knock on your door to serve a warrant. Of course with modern tech, it’s not like you wouldn’t leave traces. Kinda like the blow still in your toilet because 2 kilos ain’t gonna flush easy.
But the chance you could delete it let’s them play Elliot Ness.
Not really, if they actually believed that destruction of evidence would occur they wouldn’t necessarily need a warrant b/c exigent circumstances would exist and a warrant wouldn’t be needed.
The FBI needs to be shut down and quite a few of these thugs need to be imprisoned. Start with the 50 Crossfire Hurricane agents that were “just doing their jobs” and work your way up.
Agree.
There is nothing the FBI does that cannot be done by a state agency.
If not shut down completely, then curtailed by 90%.
Except all of those federal laws.
Federal laws are to be enforced by the militia of the whole, not a federal police power that explicitly doesn’t exist. The Constitution literally SAYS that, but the government pretends it says FNORD so they can’t see it.
“to be enforced by the militia of the whole,”
Describe this “militia of the whole” and how it is going to prosecute Aldrich Ames for passing secrets to the Soviets.
“There is nothing the FBI does that cannot be done by a state agency.””
Aldrich Ames passing intelligence secrets to the Soviets.
Tell us which state is going to handle this.
Fentenyl being manufactured in Mexico, say, an d being sold in the US.
Tell us which state is going to go after the bosses in Mexico..
etc.
This is troubling… Biden himself was not too upset that Harris lost. The AG has always been acting on Biden’s direction, so it doesn’t seem likely Biden gave the okay to Justice. The AG… why would he care? The election is over and he’s on to other things in a couple of months.
That leaves the FBI. Not just the leadership but at the management level as well. They are acting as a government all unto themselves. This agency has to be dissolved.
It is quite likely that *no one*, certainly not Biden, is in charge at the federal level and that these agencies are acting on their own.
I agree with their dissolution; the corruption is everywhere.
The FBI has had their own agenda, pretty much forever.
Does Mr. Copeland have the right to find out what prompted the raid?
…Coplan
And here we go…….
More of the same. Americans are learning to fear their government and the DOJ is at the top of the list. Needs cleaning out badly. Thus the name Matt Gaetz sends a message.
Someone or someones need to go to prison for a very long time.
If this Polymarket guy violated the law and the government can prove that to a jury then fine.
But – sadly – I think the opposite is true. I believe this is indeed persecution. And if that’s the case then everyone involved should have the entire library thrown at them.
Matt Getz might not be radical enough to displace the deep state.
A Trump-sized footprint should be on every ass at the FBI, IRS and DOJ.
I would like to see the warrant and the name of the judge who signed it. According to Robert Barnes many judges would sign a leaf if it blew across their desks. The whole point of getting a warrant has been subverted. Did the FBI even have a warrant?
The US is starting to look like the Soviet with middle of the night knocks on the door. A quote from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago :
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
I read the whole book, all three volumes as they came out. Every page, every sentence, every word. This one book changed my whole outlook. Don’t forget his “We didn’t love freedom enough.” Time to stop the abuses. I hope Trump can do it.
The FBI has to be terminated with extreme prejudice and another agency needs to be established that has no former FBI personnel. What was the point of the raid and why at 6 AM? The FBI will get back to you on that. BTW who was the judge who signed the warrant, assuming the FBI had one?
A blind pig could have made the call but libs refusing the data could see it.
Since the government — with their infinite woke wisdom –can’t accurately predict anything, they assume anyone who can predict accurately must be cheating somehow
Predict something? They can’t even deliver something in their own job descriptions,
These raids by the FBI are ridiculous. Remember Roger Stone? Just showing up demanding electronic devices but not saying why? What the hell is that. If you are seizing equipment or raiding a domicile you should have to spell out why you are doing it.
January can not come quick enough to clean these assholes out of DC
Even with a warrant, couldn’t the subject stop LE at the door and say, “I’m contacting my attorney. He will be here and you can deal with him. Please wait outside”? Doesn’t the citizen have a right to counsel at every step of “due process”?
No. For instance, imagine saying that if they come to arrest you. Do you really think the arresting officers have to let you call your attorney and then sit and wait for him to arrive, before they can arrest you?! No, that’s not how it works. You inform them that you’re represented and you don’t wish to talk to them without your attorney, and then you shut up. You give them your attorney’s number, and they cuff you and take you away. Only after you’re securely in a cell do they call your attorney and tell him you’re there and he can come down and talk to you.
Due process refers only to a court case. Being arrested, or being searched, is not part of that.
For search warrant? Maybe. Definitely not for an arrest warrant.
“Doesn’t the citizen have a right to counsel at every step of “due process”?”
”Every drug dealer enthusiastically agrees with you.
How high a price are you willing to pay for “Doesn’t the citizen have a right to counsel at every step of “due process”?”
What principle are you using to determine that price?
I have my cell phone well hidden. When the Feds come for my phone I will hand them an old rotary dial.
Most of them have never seen a dial phone and would shoot you thinking that you are holding a bomb.
And they don’t have much of a short term memory, either. Guy on the rez got shot for coming out (on demand), holding the robot the cops had just dumped inside his front door.
He was fortunate that they did’t kill him like P’Nut the squirrel or the Little Rock Airport director. The last one got little or no attention or explanation. ATF does early morning raid, blocks his security camera, turned off their body cameras, battering ram on the front door and shot him in the head, 56 seconds after entering the home.
He had documents that were damaging to Bill Clinton, no doubt.
As far as I know, we still have no idea why they did that. I think the family is suing for wrongful death, so there may eventually be discovery and depositions and they might have to come up with a reason, but I haven’t heard that they’ve done so yet.
Suing for wrongful death when negligent homicide is the least level of crime committed. The covering of the camera, no body cams… that is intent. How many fed and cops have gone to jail for such crimes? Few if any because they were doing the work of the state. When the desire of the state is to garner political favor than you get the George Floyd case.
You can’t sue for a crime. You can only sue for a tort, and wrongful death is the tort available.
I assumed that Polymarket would have the most accurate outlook because it in effect was a universal polling system with people betting money in real time on the outcome and those with the best information driving the betting market in an accurate direction. I saved hours of watching mainstream news outlets, which lagged the betting market by a long time in calling states.
Tyrus on Gutfeld before the election repeatedly said there was no way that the Presidential election would be close and that it would be over by 10 o’clock Eastern. It was pretty much over on Polymarket by then, but not on MSM for many hours longer.
Note that the MSM has a strong motive for both keeping people watching TV for as long as possible (ads) and not making a mistake. That delays predictions. A betting market of $3B in size will reflect incoming results in real time if the odds at any moment are out of line with what the latest data indicates.
Peanut and Fred
RIP
There are bigger things to worry about than a rodent and trash panda.
You mean like how the government can raid your house because you didn’t beg them permission to rescue a baby squirrel?
The ‘authorities’ had predetermined the death of Peanut the squirrel and Fred the racoon. They tried to blame the killing of these pets on a bite but the documents released so far have a timeline with the State coordinating with County to destroy these animals prior to the raid.
The standard has got to go back to zero LEO raid, assault force or anything other than a polite knock on the door by one or two Peace Officers as the rule. The very rare exception to the rule after an adversarial hearing with a counsel appointed by the CT is a warrant authorizing a kinetic action.
I used Peace Officer deliberately. That’s what we need to return to. Get away from Police viewing themselves as Law Enforcement Officers and return to Peace Officer mindset. That’s a totally different philosophy of Policing. Doesn’t mean no SWAT but it does mean the beat cop must lose their ‘thin blue line’ attitude and check their egos. Begin with retraining on 1st,.2nd and 4th amendment. It’s frightening how many LEO don’t understand when they can lawfully detain someone; their misunderstanding of ‘officer safety’ exception and conflate ‘welfare check’ with exigent circumstances exceptions especially so between a driver on the road, a pedestrian, a person in their yard and inside their home. Different locations have different applications but too often bad training/ego override the Constitutional protections of Citizens.
Kamala lost. Someone must be punished.
Retribution is on the way
Gene Hackman and Will Smith… eeh?
While FBI is KGB by another name, there may be a legitimate reason as plenty of enemy actors are in play here. While not probable for motive, it is possible. The 6 am schtick says I am wrong. So don’t fight me on this- I’m not dying on the FBI hill unless I have information on Hillary Clinton or Boeing and its suicide by six shots to the back of the skull.
My point: a busted clock is right twice a day.
Anybody surprised that a bunch of authoritarians at the DOJ would do this? Yeah, me neither. This is not any sort of surprise. The ONLY surprise is that the person in charge of polymarket allowed himself to be within reach of the regime.
Where should he have moved, that would be safer than the USA? It’s only here that we have actual rights, that are respected most of the time and when they’re not we can sue before courts that actually care about them. What other country has that? Every other Western country has pretend rights, that all include a provision “except when the government really really wants to”.
Plenty of places are happy to have rich Americans there paying taxes and don’t extradite.
No, there aren’t plenty of places. Any place with that description is an authoritarian swamp that could arrest you whenever it likes, without even a reason at all. So when the USA comes asking for you, they’re not going to resist. They’ll scoop you up and hand you over. Or they might hand you over to China instead, or to Russia, Iran, the Cartels, or whoever else wants you.
Yeah .. really looks like his rights are being respected by the fascists at the government.
His phone’s been seized, but he’s a free man, and he can sue to get his phone back and get his day before a truly neutral court. In what other country would he be safer from the government?
You speak as if the US government were the source of all evil in the world, just like a good critical studies lefty. If you really think so, then you should be trying to overthrow the USA and should be helping its enemies, as they do.
This is still the only country where freedom exists. It’s not perfect, but in every country you’re at the government’s mercy, and none of them are as respectful of rights as ours is. None of them are restrained by a system that makes them respect rights as ours does.
So again, where should he have fled that would have been safer than staying here?
Dunno. You know who you might ask? Seth Rich, Jeff Epstein, Ashli Babbitt, and Ed Snowdon. ONE of them might have some workable ideas.
Is your middle name Pollyanna? Let me modify one of the above sentences.. “This is still the only country where diminishing freedoms exist for the time being.”. Every solution you give requires time, money and emotional distress to take on the state which has infinitely more power with rarely any real negative consequences. It’s a lawyers’ paradi$e.
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