The Nobel Peace Prize Committee is investigating possible insider trading by gamblers. A few hours before the winner was announced, players put huge amounts of money on the person who would eventually win the election.
Last Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for her tireless work promoting democratic rights in Venezuela and her struggle to achieve a peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.
On Thursday evening, hours before the announcement of the winner, betting site Polymarket saw a surprising number of bets on Machado as the winner. Her odds of winning suddenly rose from 1.9 percent to 72.8 percent. Before that, the percentage had been steady at between 0.5 and 3 percent for over three months.
This caught the attention of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which decided to investigate the matter.
“We have not yet clearly identified what has happened, but the most likely thing is that we have been subjected to espionage,” Kristian Berg Harpviken, Director of the Nobel Institute, told Norwegian news outlet VG.
The Nobel Institute has dealt with espionage more than once in the past, but always managed to protect the integrity of the Nobel Peace Prize election.
Harpviken doesn’t rule out the possibility that gambling might have played a part in the outcome of the election.
“This prize has such high status that, unfortunately, it also becomes financially attractive to many people. When you look at the betting sites and all the things you can bet on, it’s just a reality we have to deal with,” he said.
According to stock analyst Robert Næss, the outcome indicates that this may have been a leak, although it may not have happened from the Nobel Committee.
“This smells scorched. It is as good as a hundred percent certain that someone has leaked,” he told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.
According to the news outlet, the stakes were high for gamblers. One gambler won around $50,000, and another user ended up earning over $85,000 on the bet.
Last Friday, María Corina Machado was officially announced as the winner at a press conference in Oslo. Until the announcement, US President Donald Trump, among others, was still relatively high on the bookmakers’ list of contenders.
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