The downtown Manhattan apartment of Shayne Coplan was raided on Wednesday at 6:00 am. Coplan is the founder and CEO of Polymarket, a betting site. Polymarket correctly predicted that Donald Trump would be elected...except that it didn't. The individuals placing bets collectively made that prediction.
So why kill the messenger, or in this case, vindictively raid his home in a dawn bust right out of the movies? It appears the answer is "because big mad".
The reason given by FBI officials is implausibly weak for such dramatic action. They claim that the raid, in which they seized Coplan's phone and other electronic devices, was part of a criminal probe into the company for breaking the terms of a deal Polymarket made with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
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Polymarket allegedly allowed US bettors to place wagers using a virtual private network, or VPN. In so doing, the bettors remained anonymous, and federal agencies are notoriously distrustful of the taxpayers who fund the government.
The FBI is being evil again.
— MentisWave 🐍🚁 (@MentisWave) November 14, 2024
Raiding a man purely because he runs a betting website which apparently violates some idiotic regulation about US server usage.
Worse, the raid may be politically motivated lawfare.
Ridiculous. https://t.co/yhwzHsZSmm
Surely, such an arcane matter as alleged bets made via VPN doesn't warrant a raid. The usual legal channels should have sufficed. Moreover, it's a matter of optics. Even if the raid was justified for reasons not revealed to the public, it looks awful. Not P'Nut the New York squirrel-tier awful, but absolutely "Government Overreach Gone Wild" nevertheless.
After all, Polymarket wasn't the only platform that had Trump winning the historic election. Platforms such as Kalshi also showed him leading in the hours before votes were cast. As a result, the decision to raid Coplan feels to many like lashing out, an impotent spasm in the fading lame duck light of Biden-Harris.
Polymarket released the following video yesterday.
Polymarket has released a video after their CEO was raided yesterday, for predicting Trump’s victory.
— American AF 🇺🇸 (@iAnonPatriot) November 14, 2024
👀 pic.twitter.com/Xj0moeLAz0
