Officials probe Polymarket over suspicious trades predicting Nobel Peace Prize winner: reports

Norwegian officials in charge of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize are investigating potential information leaks following suspicious bets on the predictions market Polymarket, according to several reports on Friday.

"We're looking into it," Nobel Institute spokesperson Erik Aasheim told The Strait News, which says local newspapers Aftenposten and Finansavisen were first to report the story.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the prestigious 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her democratic activism against the country's current leader, President Nicolás Maduro Moros.

In the hours leading up to the committee's announcement, at least three accounts placed sizable bets that Machado would win, disrupting what was previously a fairly tight race between market leaders, Yulia Navalnaya, Russian activist and widow of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, as well as U.S. President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV.

The three accounts made a combined profit of about $90,000. Onlookers noticed that Machado's odds began to spike Thursday evening, leading to concerns about potential insider trading.

Trader "6741" appears to have created a new account to trade the market and netted about $53,500, crypto news outlet Protos previously reported. The Polymarket user also placed smaller counter bets favoring Navalnaya, and activists Greta Thunberg and Julian Assange.

The five-member committee reportedly decided to nominate Machado by Oct. 6, according to earlier reports. Machado was informed about the prize within minutes of the announcement at 11 a.m. in Oslo.

This is not the first time Polymarket trades have raised concerns over potential information leaks. The platform, which inked a deal to receive $2 billion from NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange earlier this week, will re-enter the U.S. market after being given the green light by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.