Norwegian officials are looking into a possible information leak about betting on Polymarket. This follows online bets that guessed the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize just hours before it was officially announced.
Bloomberg reports that the Norwegian Nobel Institute is looking into whether private information about the prize winner, Venezuelan opposition leader MarÃa Corina Machado, was shared before it was officially announced.
“We are checking into it,” said Erik Aasheim, a spokesperson for the Nobel Institute, after news was first shared by Aftenposten and Finansavisen.
Officials are looking into a leak of information about the Nobel Prize that is connected to trading on Polymarket
The investigation started because trading data on Polymarket, a betting platform that uses the Polygon blockchain, showed a big increase in bets on Machado about 11 hours before the Nobel Committee announced their decision in Oslo.
Machado won the award on Friday morning for her work to bring back democracy in Venezuela.
Around midnight in Norway, people using Polymarket started buying contracts for Machado for only $0. 08 This caused the price to quickly rise to $1. 00 by the time the news was announced, which is over a 1,000% increase.
Three betting accounts that mostly wagered on Machado reportedly made about $90,000 in total profit, according to Finansavisen.
Local news says that the five members of the Nobel Committee made their decision on Monday, and they told Machado just before the announcement was made.
The increase in activity on Polymarket has made officials wonder if someone from the committee or its close advisors might have shared information about the winner ahead of time.
Polymarket is a platform where people can bet on real events using stablecoins like USDC. It has quickly become a popular place for getting predictions from a crowd.
The platform usually draws in traders who look at public information, social media posts, and large companies’ actions to predict events before they are officially announced.
In this situation, the market for the Nobel Peace Prize, where people could buy and sell shares of possible winners, became a center for guessing and making bets.
A few hours before the Nobel Committee announced the winner, Machado’s contract price started to rise quickly, while the chances for other candidates stayed the same. The situation shows how strong and dangerous open information markets can be.
These platforms gather public opinions and information quickly, but they raise concerns about people having secret information when trading happens faster than official announcements.
Norwegian officials haven’t said if there will be a formal financial investigation, but people at the Nobel Institute admitted that they need to look into the fairness of the prize process.
This situation is one of the first times a prediction market using blockchain technology might have revealed a problem in a big international organization.
Experts say that even though big news companies didn’t talk about Machado’s win before it was announced, the Polymarket data already showed that people expected it to happen.
Polymarket is looking at the U. S Kalshi is coming back strong with a $205 million investment and is leading the market
Despite the accusations, Polymarket has raised a total of $205 million in two funding rounds that were not previously announced, according to CEO Shayne Coplan.
The investments have raised the company’s value to $1. 2 billion, showing that it has grown from a small DeFi startup to an important player in the prediction market.
In the first round in 2024, they raised $55 million, with Blockchain Capital leading the investment, and the company’s value was set at $350 million. A year later, Founders Fund led a $150 million Series B funding round, with help from Ribbit Capital, Valor, Point72 Ventures, SV Angel, 1confirmation, Coinbase, and Dragonfly.
Polymarket has received about $279 million in funding. This does not include a new partnership with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, which plans to invest up to $2 billion.
Polymarket is getting ready to restart its operations in the United States after buying QCX LLC for $112 million. This purchase allowed them to get a special license to operate.
The CFTC recently sent a letter saying it’s okay to start trading again. This comes after the company settled a case last year and paid a $1. 4 million fine for trading without proper registration.
Even with some earlier limits, Polymarket kept expanding internationally, handling over $6 billion in trades in the first half of 2025. Its comeback happens as the competing platform Kalshi has grown quickly, reportedly hitting over $50 billion in annual trading and taking more than 60% of the global prediction market, according to Dune Analytics.
