Polymarket Trader Lost $3.6M Betting on Tyson After $11M Trump Win

A Polymarket trader who won roughly $11 million betting on Donald Trump’s return to the White House lost almost a third of that money after backing a comeback that failed to materialize at Texas’s AT&T Arena on Friday night.

YouTube star turned boxer Jake Paul’s underwhelming defeat of a distinctly rusty “Iron” Mike Tyson in Friday’s overhyped Netflix spectacle, represented a body blow for the bettor who had $3.6 million riding on the contest.

In the lead-up to the bout, “zxgngl” bought over 11 million shares at an average price of 33¢, representing one-third odds. And while they lost the bet, they remain the fourth-highest earner on Polymarket thanks to Trump’s win, according to the platform’s leaderboard.

Controversial Bout

The fight was controversial from the get-go, with many questioning the ethics of allowing a 58-year-old man to take on a fighter 30 years his junior, even if that 58-year-old was one of the greatest heavyweights of all time.

Tyson’s last professional fight was in 2005 against Kevin McBride when he quit in the seventh round and subsequently declared he had lost his passion for the sport.

Originally scheduled for July, the Paul fight was delayed until Friday night after Tyson suffered an ulcer flareup on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles in May, prompting concerns about his health.

State agencies in Texas only agreed to sanction the match if Paul wore 14-ounce gloves, as opposed to the regulation 10-ounce gloves, and the action was limited to eight rounds, each lasting two minutes.

Meanwhile, nine state gaming regulators prohibited their licensed sportsbooks from taking action on the fight because of its nontraditional rules and because they couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t be scripted. Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont didn’t take bets on the contest.

Fire the Scriptwriter

It didn’t help when a (fake) document purported to be a leaked script detailing a round-by-round breakdown of the fight began circulating on social media in the days leading up to the event.

But if the fight was scripted (it wasn’t), then someone should fire the scriptwriter, because it was largely a drab affair that was booed by the crowd in later rounds for lack of action.

In all, more than $63 million was wagered on Polymarket on both competitors.