Polymarket Hires Nate Silver After Taking in $265M of Bets on U.S. Election: Report

• American statistician Nate Silver hired as an adviser by prediction market Polymarket.

• Polymarket has seen $265 million of bets placed on this year’s U.S. presidential election and more than $400 million overall since the start of the year.

As the U.S. presidential election enters its final stretch, crypto-based prediction market platform Polymarket has struck while the iron is hot by hiring well-known statistician and writer Nate Silver as an adviser, according to an Axios report.

Silver has for years provided forecasts on U.S. elections, initially through his FiveThirtyEight service (that he subsequently sold and no longer works for). And Polymarket has seen big business on this year’s presidential race, with $265 million already placed on the election. Its prediction market shows Donald Trump as a resounding favorite with a 70% chance of winning the vote.

The acquisition of Silver means users can expect a diversified range of prediction markets based on news events. Aside from elections, Silver also analyzes baseball and basketball.

Founded in 2020, Polymarket has raised a total of $70 million from investors including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund (which was an early investor in CoinDesk’s parent company Bullish) and Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin.

Polymarket Vice President David Rosenberg told Axios that it will eventually begin charging fees for transactions that take place on the platform.

So far this year, Polymarket has taken in more than $400 million of bets through its markets, which cover politics, pop culture, sports and science.